Zombietopia
by Shinigamilover2
Summary: Zootopia AU. Judy Hopps dreamed of being a police officer for the ZPD, but little did she expect to find the city in ruins, with the bodies of the dead roaming the streets, looking for flesh to dine on. She joins Nick Wilde, a veteran in the zombie war and becomes a member of his faction in hopes of taking the city back for good. Rated T for horror violence and blood. R&R please?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: In honor of 'Zootopia' I have decided to do a story I've been waiting to do for so long, an AU story in which Judy and Nick live in a zombie apocalypse! Interesting concept right? Well now this is what happens when Zootopia is inhabited by mindless corpses. Without further ado, I give you 'Zombietopia'. Enjoy.**

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

The burrows was home to many bunnies, a majority of them were carrot farmers and they were successful at what they did too. Some had very large families that grew up to be carrot farmers themselves. It was my home for a while until I wanted to become a police officer by studying at the Zootopia Police Academy, but something changed the day before I was supposed to leave to begin my training at the academy.

"Are you sure about this Judy? The city can be a pretty big place" my father Stu said.

"I'm sure dad. Anyone can be anything in Zootopia, and for me, it's an officer of the law" I said while I was packing my bags with all my clothes, some snacks to help me get through the long train ride there, and my music player too.

"I couldn't be more proud of you than I am now" my dad said with a tear falling down his eye and I hugged back.

"Hey Stu!" I heard a voice call out. That was my mom's voice.

"Yes Bonnie?" he asked breaking apart from the hug and turned his head to see mom standing in the doorway.

"There's some animal in our field. I called out to them but they didn't respond. Maybe you can have better luck getting their attention?" asked my mother. I followed behind him as we both went down the stairs and to the back porch.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Stu walked out onto the back porch to see what looked like a cheetah, only they were on their knees and looking down onto the dirt covered ground.

"Wait here. I can handle this" the older bunny said as he walked off the porch and towards the cheetah.

"Hey there, fella. Can I help ya? You look mighty lost" Stu said placing his paw on the cheetah's shoulder. The only response that Stu got was a low raspy groan, and the cheetah turning their heads to reveal their eyes were bloodshot and the color of the eye was gold with tints of red around the pupils, and their lower jaw was missing, the tongue still flickering from the back of their throats and blood surrounded their paws.

"Oh dear lord!" Stu shouted as he began backing away in shock and the cheetah began following Stu with one of it's hind paw's dislocated and the bone stuck out from beneath the flesh and fur.

"Stu!" Bonnie cried out as she went into the kitchen and got the double-barreled shotgun from above their fireplace and loading some shells into it.

"Hurry!" Judy called out as she watched her father run as fast as he could, but even with a bone sticking out it's leg, the cheetah was still fast.

"Alright, I got it" Bonnie said as she took aim at the cheetah and shot it's upper part of the leg that wasn't damaged. But all it did was slow it down, the cheetah was still following Stu and it was getting very close to the front porch.

"Stay away from my husband!" Bonnie cried before shooting again in the stomach, but it barely phased the cheetah and kept on chasing him. Bonnie reloaded the shotgun and Judy had an idea.

"Gimme that" Judy said swiping the gun away and aiming for the cheetah's forehead. Once Judy fired the bullet, it made collision with the desired target and the cheetah finally fell to the floor backwards onto the dirt.

"Come on inside!" Judy said taking her father's paw and guiding him back inside, shutting the door behind him.

"Will you explain to me what just happened out there?" asked Bonnie.

"I haven't got the slightest clue, Bonnie. Even if I knew, I wouldn't have ran like I did" Stu said walking up to the front windows of the house and saw that there were several bunnies being chased by animals, predator and prey in the same type of condition the cheetah only a lot of them had their body parts still in tact, many others were missing limbs or had chunks of flesh taken out their bodies.

"Judy, turn the television on right now" Bonnie asked in fright. She did as asked and turned on the TV, a local news station was interrupted by a screen with multicolored bars on it with the words 'Emergency Broadcast' in white letters kept inside a black horizontal bar at the top, as well as 'Contagious Disease Warning' below it.

"Guys, come here. I think this is an outbreak or something" Judy said signaling her parents to come towards the TV to hear the sounds of beeping before a voice took over the screen.

"This emergency broadcast has been ordered by the city of Zootopia's department of civil defense. Authorities in your area have reported cases of the bodies of the dead rising from their graves and attacking the living" said the voice. Stu pulled out a small pocket radio from his overalls and turned it on listening to the exact same thing that was being heard on the TV. Judy and Bonnie only kept on watching in horror.

"We advise you not to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are considered to be extremely contagious and violent. Any animal that these bodies kill gets back up and kills" the mechanical voice said.

"It's probably not just the Burrows, it's probably in other areas too" Judy said to her mother still holding the gun tightly in her paws.

"The Zootopia Embassy must know something about this" Bonnie said to Judy in response. Stu kept on changing the channels on his pocket radio to hear different news reports of the same events occurring, mindless cannibalistic corpses attacking and killing living animals.

"Someone has to deliver the message to Zootopia's mayor Lionheart and convince him to send help, I don't think we're gonna last a week under these conditions unless some kind of help is sent" Stu said peeking out the blinds to see the body of a raccoon driving a tractor and running down a car passing by, making both vehicles explode and the raccoon kept on running towards a pair of young school-bunnies while his entire body was on fire.

"I'll do it" Judy said piping in, causing Bonnie and Stu to look at their daughter.

"Judy, you don't know what these things care capable of. They're attacking and killing anything that moves" Stu said trying to convince his daughter not to go out there.

"What other choice do we have? Besides, I can get information and send it back to the burrows the minute I receive it" Judy said walking to the garage with Bonnie and Stu following her. Judy picked a jigsaw off the bench and sawed off the tall double-barrel pipes, making it sawed off like an action movie star's weapon.

"How do we know Zootopia isn't filled with these things too?" Bonnie asked. Judy then walked back to the fireplace with her parents still following her and took all the shells and ammunition off the top of the fireplace.

"I'm not a little kit anymore, mom. If I'm gonna be an officer, I gotta learn how to handle situations like this" Judy said placing her paw on her mother's shoulder.

"I never thought I'd see my daughter leaving in dark times like these" Bonnie said placing her paw on Judy's cheek lovingly.

"Don't worry mom. I'm gonna bring back help, food, supplies, weapons... you name it, I won't let you all die like this" Judy said taking her mother's paw off her cheek and onto her own chest.

"I know you will" Stu said as he pulled out his keys to their truck.

"Go get your bag, the least we can do is drive you to the train station" said Bonnie. Judy's only response was a nod and smile before running up to her room and zipping up her bag and placing the strap over her shoulder with the entire bag was dangling from her shoulder and hit her hip gently as she walked.

"I'll sit in the trunk, I can shoot at these things if they try and chase us" Judy said loading the sawed-off double-barrel. Stu and Bonnie ran out the door first with Judy following and hopping into the trunk, picking up a pitchfork from the back and keeping it close.

"Alright dad, hit the gas pedal and drive as fast as you can" Judy called out from the back. Stu nodded and turned the keys, making the engine emit smoke from underneath the hood a little bit and started driving down the dirt road.

"Keep driving. There are a few right behind us" Judy said as she got on her knees behind the back door of the trunk and held the gun close to her face to get a good aim. The corpses kept on chasing them and Judy shot the third one in the back right in the head, which made it stumble off the road and roll down a hill.

"Got it" Judy whispered to herself. Another corpse grabbed onto the trunk's door and Judy was close enough to shoot it right in the side of the head, making the entire left half of it's head blow off.

"Everything alright back there?" asked Bonnie. Judy reloaded her weapon placing some shells inside.

"Never been better, mom" Judy said as she spotted the corpse of a dingo which was missing it's arm getting closer to the truck. Judy decided now was probably a good time to use the pitchfork that was in the back and jabbed it right through the skull of the corpse before pulling it back and causing the lifeless body to fall into a nearby pond.

"How longer before we get there!?" Judy called out placing the bloodied pitchfork back at her hind paws and fired another shot at another corpse, but all it did was blow it's leg clean off.

"Not long, only three more minutes!" Stu called out. Judy looked behind her to notice there was a rocky ledge up ahead on the turn they were supposed to make.

"Only got one shot at this, and I hope it doesn't make us slip and fall off the road" Judy said in her mind before aiming a bullet at one of the rocks in the ground that was attached to the ledge, causing it to fall and create an avalanche, bringing every last corpse chasing them down with them.

"Thank heaven that worked" Judy said wiping the sweat off her forehead. Soon, they arrived at their destination and Judy jumped out the trunk and followed her parents inside the train station. There were very little animals in there and some of them were corpses on the ground with their heads blown or sliced off.

"I can't thank you enough" Judy said handing her father the shotgun but Stu shook his head with a smile.

"Keep it, you'll need it more than we do" said Stu.

"But I can't just leave you here unarmed" Judy said looking sad and guilty all the same.

"We won't. We saw our neighbors offering shelter as we left. We can go there and wait for any radio signals of the news to be heard. I assume they'll have some weapons there too" Bonnie said.

"I'll call you as soon as I have news" Judy said hugging her mother tightly, inn which the response she got was her mother hugging back and smiling.

"Good luck Judy" said Stu before guiding his daughter onto the train and the door shut as the two elder rabbits waved their daughter goodbye.

"Same to you" Judy whispered to herself, wishing they'd be alright. She noticed the train was empty and nobody else was aboard it but her.

"It's gonna be a long boring train ride to Zootopia" said Judy to herself a little bit weirded out about the isolation she was in. Being the only passenger aboard, Judy had decided to take this as an opportunity to sit up on the front of the train. Once she got to the front, she placed her bag down and lied her shotgun right next to it. She felt like she needed to rest and lie down, using her bag as a pillow, closing her eyes to take a nap to kill some time to get to the city, hoping that there was a solution to this problem and that she's not to late to save everyone she loved, like her family and friends.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

I don't remember how long I lied down for. What felt like a few hours felt like a couple minutes and just as I was getting comfortable and getting ready to completely drift off into unconsciousness, I head a voice over the train's loudspeaker.

"Attention all passengers, we are now arriving in Zootopia in five minutes" I smiled at that and stood up to look at the window, what I saw made my heart drop to my stomach. The entire city of Zootopia was half-way destroyed, there were dark gray storm-clouds above the city, smoke coming off of several buildings that were completely or half-destroyed, and ashes fell from the skies like snow.

"No, it can't be" I whispered to myself. Zootopia must have been where this whole thing began and those corpses were now invading outside. I closed my eyes and silently prayed in my head, hoping there would be other survivors looking for shelter or defending themselves in the streets. But more importantly, I hoped that the Embassy and it's members were still alive, because it looked like the whole globe was plunging into the apocalypse.

 **A/N: How was that? Pretty good introduction to a zombie story? Now that the first main character is set up, we're gonna get an introduction to Nick in the next update and see how he's been surviving through the apocalypse. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hope everybody's enjoying this story so far. First chapter, we got to see Judy's side as to how the Burrows began being invaded by the zombies, but now comes the point of view of Nick. And I think you'll find Nick's side of the story just as interesting. Enjoy!**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

I was just a pup when it started. They didn't know why the dead were rising from the graves and killing the living, making meals out of their flesh. The city's mayor thought it was some kind of virus, and that it would be best if those who weren't sick evacuated from the city and have those that were bitten by these things quarantined... but that didn't work, because it was already too late. Half the city's population was infected and there were very limited few who weren't bitten or some into contact with the infected ones.

"I can't believe it's been so many years and the city's nothing but a trashed and deserted battleground" I said to myself looking all around the city, streets and sidewalks covered in ashes falling from the sky like it was a snow day, cars completely wrecked and their remains on the road or on the sidewalk, smoke coming from a fire nearby rising up to the cloudy sky. When the virus began spreading and there were more dead than there were living, a war was declared between the living and the dead. Evacuating every last non-infected animal would have won us the war, but the dead won in the end since they came up to us with the element of surprise and greater numbers.

"Hey Clawhauser! What have you found!?" I called out behind me to the inside of a Gas Station's mini-mart. A heavy overweight cheetah wearing a tattered and worn out dark blue police uniform came out with a few boxes.

"I was able to salvage some clothes, food, and some candy just in case" Clawhauser said opening one of the boxes to show every last bit of candy.

"What did you do, raid the entire shelf?" I asked looking down at the candy.

"Yes" Clawhauser said simply.

"Good work. Now let's load these into the car" I said closing the box of candies and walked over to my convertible parked by one of the gas pumps and opened up the trunk, allowing Clawhauser and I to place the boxes inside.

"Hey Nick, can I ask you something?" Clawhauser asked me.

"Sure" I said after a sigh.

"What was it like when the war started?" the cheetah asked. I just took a deep breath and smacked my tongue a bit, Clawhauser never really got out much when he worked for the ZPD, he never got to see what it was like when the dead took over our streets and nearly infected and killed half the city's population.

"You wouldn't have liked it, there was fire everywhere. Animals were screaming and running for their lives, kids were crying and asking their parents if everything was gonna be okay or if the monsters would get them. Everything was chaos, the war was declared when the living started to fight back" I said walking to the driver's seat of the car and stuck the keys in the ignition. Clawhauser got into the shotgun seat and shut the door beside him the minute he stepped inside.

"And do you really think a faction of just us is gonna help take back the city?" he asked after the engine turned on and I began driving us down the road, leaving tire tracks in the ashes that covered the road.

"No, it's not. We need more fighters to our group, the more we have, the easier it'll be to hunt for food, and take out every last zombie in this city" I replied making a turn and going down the shopping area of the city. Bodies littered the sidewalks as well as broken glass.

"And another thing, you know this city is called Zootopia right?" the cheetah asked me.

"Yeah, so?" I asked back with one eyebrow raised and the other narrowed down.

"So why do you call it 'Zombietopia' instead of Zootpia?" he asked.

"Zootopia was a city where animals lived in prosperity, predator and prey alike. Now there are hardly any animals left, only mindless killer corpses of their former selves. So, with the majority of the city's population being zombies, I feel like it's only appropriate to call it 'Zombietopia'" I explained as I had made another turn to another area of the shopping district.

"Well I don't like Zombietopia, I don't like it at all" Clawhauser said, I noticed him looking at the buildings that were destroyed or abandoned. Poor guy didn't get to see what the war was like and how the virus had spread, he was spending a few years outside the city taking care of his sick elderly grandmother and when he came back the city was in ruins. I spotted him running away from zombies when he tried reentering his old apartment, only to find out the inhabitants had been infected and tried attacking him. The minute I killed every last one of the zombies that were trying to attack him the was in my debt and wouldn't leave my side at all.

"Welcome to the apocalypse" I said sarcastically trying to keep my eyes on the road and keep the conversation with Clawhauser going at the same time.

"And what about the areas outside the city? Like the Burrows?" Clawhauser asked me.

"They shouldn't be having zombie problems. Any area outside the city was considered a safe place and only a few were successfully evacuated" I explained.

"And you're sure no zombies were on board?" asked the overweight cheetah.

"Not a chance, what happens in Zombietopia STAYS in Zombietopia" I concluded before I heard something. Slamming my hind paw on the brakes, I looked around and heard groans and screeching.

"Zombies" I snarled reaching for the back seat of my car and lifted the seats up.

"What are you doing?" asked Clawhauser.

"Getting some traps ready" I replied taking out a large metal spring that was really long and had flattened wooden spikes on it (that I sharpened enough to be thin enough) and it was all rolled up like a blanket or a sleeping bag.

"Traps? Are you sure that traps are enough to stop zombies?" he asked. He asks a lot of questions, I don't blame him, he's inexperienced and mainly did desk work back at the ZPD.

"Clawhauser my good friend, there are many things you need to learn about surviving in Zombietopia, and one of those things is trap building" I said without turning my head and walked onto the left sidewalk rolling out the spring onto the street and it successfully rolled all the way out to the other side of the street.

"I see them" Clawhauser said pointing ahead of us. I turned to see about ten zombies pacing around on the streets for no apparent reason, or maybe looking for another victim to eat.

"Good eye" I said kneeling down and placing my paws on two levers on the end of the spring that was facing me.

"Rev the engine up" I ordered to Clawhauser who nodded simply with a straight face and slammed his hind paw on the gas pedal, making the engine roar really loud and catching the attention of the zombies.

"Good work, now we wait" I said clutching the levers tightly and waiting for the zombies to get close enough. The groaning and roaring got louder as they ran closer. I could tell Clawhauser was nervous because he was sweating from his forehead. The minute the zombies were close enough, I twisted both levers in the opposite directions and the spikes popped up and impaling the zombies in the chests and stomachs, making them totally immobile.

"Gotcha!" I shouted standing back up and went back to the car, pulling out a machine gun from the same area where I got the trap and loaded a magazine of bullets into it.

"Pick a gun, buddy. The shooting gallery is now open" I said loading the gun up. A few seconds later, I saw Clawhauser come out the car holding a mini Uzi gun and loaded it up.

"Pretty clever trap, Nick. Now I know why I started fighting beside you" I heard him say. We both began shooting at the zombies and so did Clawhauser. By the time we ran out of bullets, the zombies were filled with bullet holes in their heads and necks. The ones who had the bullet holes in their neck had their heads fall off due to the number of bullets we shot into them.

"Let's take these corpses off the spikes and roll it back up" I said and we both pushed the lifeless zombie bodies off the spikes. After I set the spikes back down by unwinding the levers, Clawhauser helped me roll it back up and place it back in the backseat of the convertible.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

"Hey Nick, look!" Clawhauser said pointing to the train tracks to show a train moving towards the train station.

"Oh no, this is not good!" Nick shouted taking another magazine out for his own machine gun and another for Clawhauser's Uzi out of the weapons trunk of the car.

"I don't understand, I thought you said all the trains that took animals in and out of the city were shut down after the evacuation" Clawhauser pointed out worried.

"I thought they would too. It would only be a matter of time before the zombies got the idea to take the train to the safe areas where the uninfected were living" Nick said handing his friend the magazine.

"How many do you think are aboard?" Clawhauser asked.

"Don't know. It doesn't look like anybody's even on board, but we can't just leave thinking that it's empty. We'll search the train from front to back" Nick said loading the gun and running across the street to the train station with the overweight cheetah following behind him.

"Wow, this place looks like a botanical garden" Clawhauser said noticing that the plants that decorated the station were overgrown and had covered large areas of the floors, walls, and even halfway up the stone pillars that supported the roof.

"Stay focused, we find whatever animal may be on that train" Nick gently reprimanded. The clanging of metal was heard from the right side of the station and Nick saw that it was a zombie goat with no arms but strings of flesh hanging from it's emptied shoulder sockets.

"I have no time for this" Nick said holding the gun up and shot multiple bullets into the zombie's head until there was no head at all and it fell forwards into the water fountain. The sound of polished wheels against rusted train tracks caught Nick's attention.

"Follow me, I think the train just arrived" Nick said running up a no longer functioning escalator and Clawhauser followed him. The minute the train came into view, both animals hid behind a large poster board that showed a map of the city.

"The minute those doors open, we go in. Try not to be seen or make much noise, we don't know if zombies have hijacked this thing" Nick whispered to Clawhauser who only nodded in response. The fox then reached into the pocket of his jacket and handed the cheetah an attachable flashlight he could clip onto his gun. The minute the flashlights were clipped to the weapons and turned on the lights, the train pulled up to it's stopping points.

"Alright, come on let's go" Nick whispered and ran towards the door when it opened. The two animals flashed their lights all over the entire train's insides and saw nothing.

"Funny, I don't see or hear anybody" Clawhauser said as he looked down the hall of the train to see no other present passengers.

"I heard something" Nick said approaching the front of the train. Clawhauser followed Nick to the front and they pointed their weapons at whatever was in the front of the train.

"Freeze!" Nick called out, what he saw stunned him. It was a female bunny holding a sawed-off shotgun and a duffle bag. The shine of the bright light shocked her and grabbed her gun off the floor pointing it back at Nick and Clawhauser. Inside Nick was screaming, it wasn't a zombie, but an animal who wasn't infected.

 **A/N: There you have it, chapter 2 and what Nick's life is like during the zombie apocalypse, not to mention Judy gets a small appearance in this chapter. The next chapter is where Nick and Judy have a proper introduction to one another, and hopefully a chance for Judy to explain what's happening in the Burrows to him. All that and more in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: In the last chapter, we got to meet Nick Wilde, who was there at the very beginning of the apocalypse, mentioning that there was a war between the living and the dead that the dead won and only half the animals who were not infected were successfully evacuated. We also got to see he is a master at building zombie traps and that he's building a faction of animals to fight the zombies and taking back Zootopia (Or Zombietopia as Nick likes to call it). Now Nick and Judy get to meet for the first time. Enjoy!**

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

This is not how I pictured myself arriving in Zootopia, a fox and a cheetah wearing clothes that looked like they were fighting in a war, holding guns with lights up to my face.

"Drop the guns!" I shouted holding by double-barrel up while still facing them.

"You first!" the cheetah called out.

"Do what she says Clawhauser, she's not infected" the fox said placing his machine gun down by his hind-paws. The cheetah, who's name I knew now was Clawhauser did the same with his mini Uzi.

"We don't want to hurt you. We come in peace" the fox said holding his paws up like he was surrendering, Clawhauser mirrored the fox putting his paws up too.

"Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?" I asked with an eyebrow raised, still holding the gun up.

"You think I'm joking? I'm being sincere that you're alright and that you're not a zombie and this is how I'm thanked? You rabbits have some strange way of treating others" the fox said right after scoffing and spoke with an irritated tone.

"Ma'am, please put the gun down. You wouldn't want to get on this fox's bad side" Clawhauser advised me taking gentle steps.

"Oh please, like I'm offending him" I said giving off the same attitude the fox gave off. Before I knew it, something unexpected happened, he yanked on my double-barrel and kicked me in the stomach with his hind-paw and pointed it at me right after my back was against the train's wall.

"Alright, no more games bunny" he said holding the gun and pointing it at my nose. I just got up holding my paws up.

"Alright alright, just stop waving that gun in my face and give it back to me" I replied a little bit worried and angry at the same time. The fox just slightly tossed the gun around and the barrels of the gun landed in his paw and offered it back to me by showing me the handle.

"Um, thank you" I said taking the gun back. The fox then extended his paw to me.

"Nick Wilde" he said simply. He was introducing himself, I just took my own paw into his and shook it politely.

"Judy Hopps" I said in reply.

"Pleasure. Now can you please tell my partner and I what it is you are doing here exactly?" Nick asked me breaking the paw-shake apart.

"There's an emergency in the Burrows. The bodies of the dead are coming back and attacking alive animals. And that's not the worst part, whoever they kill gets back up and acts exactly like them" I explained. Nick looked shocked.

"It's happening in the Burrows too!? I thought every area outside of the city was a safe-zone" Nick replied. Wait, this was happening before it started back home? What was going on.

"What are you talking about?" I asked confused. Nick just sighed and rubbed his temple with his left paw.

"This was happening long before it started long before it was happening to you in the Burrows. It started with some sort of virus that was airborne. It was meant to be a chemical weapon against any invaders who tried destroying the city but one day one of the top scientists that was working on the project went suicidal and poisoned himself with the virus in the testing chamber" Nick explained. This was really starting to make my little heart race as I was being explained the cause of what was happening.

"Are you serious? Why would he do that?" I asked.

"Nobody knows. The day after he did, the entire staff got attacked and bitten by the suicidal scientist after they found their body lying on the floor, got rose up from where he was lying down and they bit every last one of them. Word spread around the city like wildfire and they were contained by the other scientists that weren't infected" Nick continued to explain.

"Wait, there were side effects?" I stopped him in the middle of his explanation.

"Yeah, and because of those side effects everyone brushed it off a few days later saying it was some sort of new disease that a cure was being developed for" Nick told me as he picked up my duffle bag for me and guided me off the train.

"Would those side effects include an acquired taste for flesh, speech reduced to moans, groans, screaming, and the mindless urge to violently attack anybody else?" I asked.

"Yeah, I assume you saw those side effects on the animals you saw in the Burrows?" Nick asked me guiding me down a broken down escalator. The entire train station was a mess. I just nodded.

"Well, you just saw zombies for the first time" said Nick simply clutching the strap of my bag tightly and holding his machine gun with the other.

"Zombies? I thought those things were fictional" I said in disbelief. This was way too much for me to take in right now.

"So anyways. One day, some animal let the infected scientists out of their quarantine cells and let them run all around the city. It broke out into chaos, infecting several other animals who were unlucky enough to come across them. And then... there was a war" Nick told me guiding me to a convertible car that was across the street covered in ashes and broken glass.

"A war? What kind of war?" I asked.

"A war between the living and the dead. Many of the uninfected had had enough of just running around watching so many others around them getting killed and made five star meals out of the bodies, so they decided to fight back" Nick said putting my bag into the trunk. Clawhauser got into the back and Nick got into the driver's seat, I guess that meant I got sit in the shotgun seat, so that's what I did.

"The zombies were winning though, they took out a majority of the buildings, shops, businesses, homes, it was crazy. For zombies they were pretty destructive. We lost the war so everybody thought it would be best to have half the city evacuate. Half decided to stay while the other half were taken outside the city where they would be safe" Nick kept his story going. I couldn't believe that zombies won a war against the living when they couldn't do anything but run, kill, bite, and eat.

"I've been trying to assemble a small faction of animals to help take back the city ever since. Haven't had much luck though" Nick finished.

"Well you did find Clawhauser though, that's something" I said .

"Still, I can't fight besides just one other animal if I'm gonna go up against ALL the zombies that populate the city" Nick said as he started the car and began driving down the road. I thought about it and just told myself I had no other choice but to join him, besides what if the members of the Zootopia Embassy are still alive and went into hiding? Maybe they could help us plan a counterattack against the zombies that are invading the burrows.

"I'm in" I said simply.

"What?" Nick asked me.

"I'll join you. If you're gonna form a faction to fight the zombies you're gonna need more than just one animal, consider me the new and third member" I told him.

"Are you sure? The zombie apocalypse ain't no fun and games, it's the real deal. Every choice you make means either life or death" Nick told me.

"You think I don't know that? I just witnessed my father almost get killed by one of those things. If it means risking my life to take back what's ours, I'll do it" I said sternly to let him know I wasn't joking around. Nick just sighed and spoke.

"Fine, but first things first you need a different outfit and another set of weapons. That double-barrel isn't gonna be enough to go against even fifteen of those zombies" Nick told me pointing at my clothes and gun.

"What's wrong with the way I dress?" I asked with my paws on my hips with an eyebrow raised.

"No offense, cottontail, but you look like you're ready to harvest crops, not kill zombies. You need an outfit that's adaptable to this crappy climate" Nick replied.

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

"I'm not just some farmer, Nick. I can fight. I've been training to be a part of the ZPD before this whole zombie business started" I heard Judy retort. The next thing I heard was Clawhauser gasp.

"You wanna be in the ZPD? I used to be in the ZPD!" he said. I just rolled my eyes and smiled letting the two start up a conversation.

"Really? What kind of things did you do?" Judy asked him excitedly.

"Well, I mostly worked the front desk" Clawhauser said disappointed.

"But now he's killing zombies with me and he's pretty dang good at it" I piped in before making another turn.

"Trust me, it's dirty but it's all worth it" Clawhauser told Judy. The minute Judy was about to say something, I pulled over and stopped in front of a sporting goods store.

"A sporting goods store? Seriously?" Judy asked me.

"Whatever you're looking for whether it be for running, biking, boxing, canoeing, or zombie killing. 'Running-Paws' is the one place in Zombietopia for all those needs" I said walking up to the motion detector doors.

"Zombietopia?" I heard Judy ask me.

"It's what he calls the city now since there are more zombies than there are animals" Clawhauser explained.

"Now with all that nonsense out of the way, let's go shopping" I said walking inside the store. The lights were on and it was as quiet as a library, nobody was in here but me, Clawhauser, and Judy.

I decided to split apart from the group and look at the bladed weapons. I was a master with a machete but only when it came to close combat, I'd take off zombies' heads or just jab them into their skulls. Not the most clean way to take out mindless cannibals, but it gets the job done.

"Ta-Da!" I heard Judy's voice say, so I turned around to see Judy in a new outfit. Black sweatpants with a black tank top with a halfway zipped up gray hooded sweatshirt over it.

"Now THAT is much more appropriate for the battlefield" I said nodding with my arms crossed.

"Thank you" she said smiling, I also noticed she was still holding her sawed-off double-barrel shotgun.

"Now to find you a case for your gun, and some other form of weapons" I said walking over to the shooting department and took a brown leather case that could be strapped around the chest area and mounted on the back out of it's plastic packaging.

"Try this" I said handing it to her. She tried it on and tightened the strap, it was a perfect fit. I'd say the same about the gun too, because it fit like a glove into the case.

"A perfect fit" I said before guiding her back to the bladed weapons area and took out two twin tomahawks and handed them to her.

"Nothing says massive head trauma like an ax to the side of the head" I joked as I watched her take different fighting stances with the tomahawks.

"Now these are perfect. I used to chop lumber back on the farm all the time" Judy said. I smiled before giving her a mountain climbing belt to place the tomahawks in and she put it on willingly placing them in two of the loops on the belt.

"Now I see a proper zombie killer ready for battle" I said, which made her smile. She had a pretty adorable smile if I do say so myself.

"Thanks" she replied. We went to look around for Clawhauser as soon as Judy finished putting on the belt and found him in the golfing department holding a large club and making attack and defensive positions. I rolled my eyes smiling while I swear I could hear Judy trying to hold back a laugh.

"Planning to hit the course as soon as all the zombies are gone?" I called out, catching his attention. The only response I got was 'Ha Ha, very funny' from him.

"You looked like you were ready for battle with that. You should take them with you. Just grab a bag and get two of each one" Judy suggested.

"Sounds good" Clawhauser said before getting a golf bag from the shelf behind him and putting two of each type of club inside.

"Aren't you gonna get anything?" I heard Judy ask me.

"Oh no, I'm alright. I got my lucky machete with me at all times. I never go anywhere without this baby" I said sticking my left leg out to show the machete in it's casing that was attached to my leg.

"I've killed about a thousand zombies with this thing. I don't know what I'd do without it" I said patting the machete's cased blade.

"Alright now let's go. Before the zombies notice we're here" I said ordering the others to follow me out of the store and back into the car.

 **A/N: Now Nick and Judy know each other, Judy's been given a history lesson of the zombie apocalypse, and is properly dressed and equipped to kill zombies. But what happens now that Nick's faction has gained another member? Find out in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: The last chapter was when Judy and Nick had finally met and she got properly prepared to kill zombies as well as become a member of Nick's faction to take back Zootopia from the zombies. Now the time has come to test Judy's skills in the midst of the apocalyptic world of Zombietopia. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Nick had gotten everyone back inside the convertible and started to drive away from the store. As the car drove down the ash sprinkled road, Judy could only stare in horror as she saw several bodies of destroyed zombies or destroyed places came into her view.

"I know, it's too much to look at. But this was all the zombies' faults" Nick said the minute he noticed Judy gazing in horror at the city's ruins.

"But what about whoever released the first zombies out of their containment? Aren't they to blame too?" Judy asked looking to Nick.

"They were never caught. Nobody saw who they were, what they looked like, not even the jobs they had in the science labs" Nick said.

"You think they'd be dead and turned into a zombie by now?" Clawhauser piped in.

"I hope so. What they did was an unforgivable crime. It was all their fault that the war started, it's all their fault Zombietopia even exists right now" Nick said clutching the wheel in such anger.

"It's even their fault that... their fault that... that..." Nick said with gaps in between words and repeating them. Judy swore she could see Nick's eyes glistening with tears, one was almost of the verge of crawling down his cheek.

"It's their fault that what?" Clawhauser asked, noticing Nick's trembling body.

"It's nothing. Forget I even said anything" Nick said wiping way his tears on his jacket sleeve and taking a deep breath, no longer trembling. His behavior just a few minutes ago convinced Judy that the fox had been hiding something, something terrible that happened when the zombies first invaded or in the middle of the war, or something that happened after they lost.

"Are you sure you don't wanna talk about it?" she said still looking at Nick.

"I said I'm fine, Judy. We need focus on finding other survivors to add to our faction" Nick said making a turn to the right and made it's way down to where most apartment buildings stood, well half of them stood while the others were destroyed because of the zombies.

"I used to live here during the war's beginning. Most of these places weren't destroyed back then" Nick said as he drove and Judy and Clawhauser gazed at everything as if they were on a tour bus or something.

"How come any outside places from the city were never told?" Judy asked.

"Our Mayor, Leodore Lionheart thought it would be best to keep the zombies, the war, everything a secret from any other place outside Zootopia, thinking they'd panic and break into riots" Nick said turning his head to Judy.

"I heard about him, he disappeared after we lost the war, right?" Clawhauser asked still looking at several dead zombie bodies were tied with barbed wire to the gated areas of the apartments that lead to the backyard area.

"But what about the embassy? Whatever became of them?" Judy asked, remembering who she was looking for in this wasteland of a once proud city.

"They went into hiding somewhere before a majority of the animals were evacuated. Where they are know... no animal knows" Nick said before slamming his hind paw on the brakes. Judy was unprepared for what had just happened and almost hit the dashboard, her nose touching the surface before she got pulled back by her seat-belt.

"What was that for!?" Judy called out, irritated. All she got back from Nick was a 'Shh' with his paw covering her mouth and he looked around the front, back, and sides of the car.

"I heard something" the fox whispered. This made Clawhauser take out his Uzi and loaded it up, preparing to fire it at whatever Nick was hearing if it were zombies. Judy began hearing something too, it sounded like cries of anguish and suffering.

"I hear it. It's coming from up there!" Judy said pointing up to one apartment building that had smoke damage on the sides and one large chunk of the roof was blown off.

"How can you tell that?" Clawhauser asked in confusion.

"In case you didn't know, she's a rabbit. Rabbits have incredible hearing" Nick said getting out of the car and taking his machete out it's case and left his machine gun in the back by Clawhauser's hind paws.

"Wait, you're going in there without your gun?" Judy asked. Nick turned his head behind him but not turning his whole body.

"Who said I was going in without a gun?" the fox asked before lifting the back of his jacket to show a small silver nine millimeter pistol in a case right by his hip.

"You both coming or what?" Nick asked before placing his covered his gun back up with the side of his jacket. Judy and Clawhauser got out the car following him to the front door.

"It's jammed, probably from all the rust" Nick said trying to open the door up but no avail. Nick then stepped away from the door and leaned against the wall, placing his machete back in it's case.

"Judy, you think you can bust the doorknob off with one of those fancy new axes of yours?" the fox asked. Judy took one of the tomahawks off her belt and with a few simple taps, the sharp blades had cut through the metal the knob came off. The door was now completely loose and Nick had pushed the door open with his paw.

"Thanks. Now let's hurry before whoever's up there becomes zombie food" Nick said taking his machete back out and ran up the stairs with Clawhauser following him first and Judy followed behind.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

Nick took us up the stairs all the way up to the top floor. The hallway had seven doors on each side of the hall.

"Listen to the rooms as we walk by. They could be in any one of these rooms" Nick ordered as we carefully tip-clawed on the wooden floor, not wanting to make any sudden noises that would attract the attention of any zombies. I heard the faint scream of a child and I turned my head to the seventh door on the right side of the building.

"I hear it, last door to the right. Hurry" I said getting the others' attention and we all ran towards the last door and kicked it down to see a small family of jackals huddled in a corner with three zombies crawling into the room through a hole in the wall that looks like it was just made.

"Hey boys!" I called out, catching the zombies' attention. They all turned their heads to us and growled.

"Sorry to interrupt your dinner time, but the kitchen's closed" I heard Nick said as he twirled the machete in between his claws and took a fighting stance, holding his weapon in the opposite direction. One of the zombies charged at Nick and he ran towards it at the same time the zombie was, and began sliding on the floor on his knees and stuck the machete up in the air. I was impressed, he sliced the zombie's entire body in half just with one blade and sliding on his knees.

"Who's next?" Nick asked the other two remaining zombies after the two halves of the body hit the carpeted floor.

"Judy, this one's all yours" Nick told me pointing to the zombie raccoon that had their spine sticking out of their back and the outside of their stomachs clawed open to reveal their insides. All I could do was smile and withdraw my tomahawks from my belt.

"Nothing would make me happier" what what I said when I charged as the zombie. Just when the zombie charged at me holding it's claws out to grab me, but I copied what Nick did and slid on the floor, twirling my axes above me, cutting off their paws, and doing the same to their ankles, making them motionless on the floor. Just when the zombie was now lying on it's stomach on the carpet, I slammed the ax blade into it's forehead before severing the head from the rest of the body for good measure.

"Nice one. But next time, please don't copy my kills" Nick told me smiling in a joking tone.

"There's still one more" said Nick said looking to Clawhauser and nodded. I winked at him just as I saw him take a wedging club out the golf bag.

"Fore!" he shouted. But before he could even attempt to take the zombie's head off, an arrow with a fire-lit tip went right through the side of it's head and caused it to fall to the floor.

"What the!? Who did that!?" Clawhauser asked a little upset someone took his kill from him. Nick and I both looked out the hole in the wall to see a mysterious animal in a red hooded cloak with horns sticking out holding a bow in one hand and a case of arrows dangling from their hip.

"Clawhauser, you get this family out of the building and give them some of the food we took from the truck stop. Judy, follow me, we're gonna see who this guy really is" Nick ordered the both of us. I followed him, putting my axes away and pulling out my double-barrel and began to chase after the cloaked animal who was now running away from us.

"Why couldn't they just make it easy on themselves and just stay where they are?" I heard Nick said as he pulled out his nine millimeter out and jumped over a wooden plank that was right in the middle of a wall, I rolled under while he jumped and saw that the next hole in the wall lead to the staircase.

"Where did they go?" I asked pointing my gun up and down the stairs.

"She's going up onto the roof. Follow me" Nick ordered and we both ran up the stairs and saw that the cloaked animal was standing over the edge looking at us.

"Stop now! You have nowhere to run!" I called out. Nick just nudged me hard.

"Ow!" I complained before shooting him the 'Death-Glare'.

"This animal might be helpful to our faction and that's how you approach them?" he scolded me, telling me what I did to deserve that nudge.

"Don't worry, I'm not looking to hurt anyone" I heard the cloaked animal say. It was a female voice, she had an accent too.

"Unless you're a walking pile of rotting flesh that is" she said before taking off her hood to reveal someone I never expected to see under that hood, it was legendary pop singer Gazelle. One of my all time favorite singers was fighting in Zombietopia, I was screaming like a little fan-kit from the inside.

"Gazelle?" asked Nick.

"You know her?" I asked, a little confused.

"I may have attended a concert once when I was little. That was before any of this zombie business started" Nick explained.

"Nice to meet you too. I saw you two kill those first two zombies before I took out the last one. I'm impressed at your skills" Gazelle complimented.

"Thank you very much ma'am. My name is Nick Wilde, I'm the leader of a small faction of fighters that kill zombies in hopes of taking Zootopia back for good" Nick introduced himself putting his gun away, I did exactly the same and placed my double-barrel back in the case.

"I'm Judy Hopps, third and newest addition to Nick's faction. I came to the city hoping that the embassy would be able to help my hometown since the zombies have already breached the outside of the city" I explained.

"You're very brave for wanting to come here on your own, Judy. But half of the embassy's members are either dead or infected" Gazelle explained to me, it kinda made me upset, but it was good that the other half survived.

"Do you know where they are?" Nick asked.

"They've split apart. I don't know where they are" Gazelle said before taking her cloak off and showing that she had a long sleeved black shirt on, covered by a small weatherproof hooded jacket, and some camouflage shorts with a weapons belt on.

"I need to get to somewhere safe for the night since it's getting pretty dark. You should come with me. It's not very far and it's the closest thing to a shelter out here in the midst of all this rubble and ashes" Gazelle said walking towards the exit, Nick and I followed her through the door and down the stairs.

"What is this place?" I asked. She turned her head placing both her front hooves on her hips.

"It's called the 'Mystic Springs Oasis'. It used to be a naturalist club before the war started. When we lost it was converted into a sanctuary for the non-infected. I can take you there if you want" she offered.

"What do you think?" I asked Nick.

"What other choice do we have? This place might have food, water, ammunition, the essentials we need to survive out here. We have to" Nick said to me. I just nodded in agreement.

"Alright, we'll go with you. How far is it?" I asked.

"Not far, just three miles from here" Gazelle said before walking down the stairs. Nick ordered me to go get Clawhauser and tell him of the sanctuary and that we'd be walking on foot from now on since he thought we'd be able to get a better car at the oasis.

 **A/N: There you go, chapter four! We got some zombie killing and the discovery that Gazelle is fighting against the zombies too. Not to mention a sanctuary, there's also a slight possibility she may become a new faction member. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: In the last chapter we saw that Gazelle is also fighting the zombies and that she knows of a sanctuary where other animals take refuge from the ones who are infected. And Nick may be hiding something because he almost broke into tears and trembling because he blamed whoever released the zombies from containment for something bad that happened before the war began. Now the faction along with a family of jackals they rescued from some intruding zombies shall arrive at the 'Mystic Springs Oasis' in hopes of gaining shelter and a new car for transportation. Enjoy!**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

This place we're going better have enough water to drink and bathe in, as well as a comfy bed and plenty of food to keep us full. I don't remember the last time I didn't eat anything that was frozen or microwaveable for dinner. I began looking at Judy and thinking about how well she did killing that zombie raccoon, sure she slid on the floor on her knees like I did but she cut off his front and hind paws before cutting their head and put her ax blade into the brain for good measure. I cleared my throat as I carried my bag of clothes around my shoulder and looked to Judy who was doing the same with her duffle bag.

"Hey, you did pretty good in the apartment. Immobilizing the zombie before killing them was a good call" I said, trying to start up a conversation between us.

"Oh, thank you. You did pretty great too, not many animals I know how to slice a corpse completely in half with a machete" Judy replied.

"Thanks. So, what was it like back in the Burrows until the zombies showed up?" I asked.

"It was beautiful. The sunrise and sunsets were always beautiful, especially in the summer. My parents were carrot farmers, but I don't think the crops have been doing well since mindless corpses invaded and nearly killed half our population. I don't remember the last time I've seen so much blood and gore before" Judy answered, I gave a small chuckle because of how she ended that sentence.

"What do you expect? They're zombies. Some of them will be missing body parts and organs and they'll be covered in fresh or dried blood. It's all the same out here in Zombietopia" I said with a joking tone. It's very important to keep your sense of humor in tact, even in the darkest of times like the zombie apocalypse. Judy laughed a bit but she held back the rest of it.

"You're funny" she said. Nobody's told me I was funny before, or laughed at my jokes other than Clawhauser.

"What about you? What was your life like before the war and Zombietopia?" Judy asked me. My smile just faded away and I looked down to my hind paws as they made prints in the slightly ashy sidewalks. I wasn't ready to talk to her, maybe any other animal about what happened to me before the war and zombies took over everything, it was just... too painful for me to spit the words out to anyone, or even think about for that matter.

"You okay?" she asked me. I didn't bother looking at her to speak, I just kept my eyes on the ground.

"I don't wanna talk about it" I simply said.

"Come on, I answered when you asked me. It's only fair I get an answer back to the same question" Judy said. Wow, I knew she wasn't gonna take 'No' for an answer. If only she knew the pain I suffered before the war.

"What part of 'I don't wanna talk about it' did you not understand?" I asked rhetorically while turning my head back with narrowed eyes at her. That look made Judy flinch a little bit.

"It it too hard to talk about it with someone?" she asked me.

"You could say that" was the only reply I gave her. Soon I looked up to see a large gate made of springs, barbed wire, and large wooden stakes like the one I built only there wasn't anything else spiky on it other than the stakes.

"We're here. Keep in mind, Yax doesn't believe in violence but he will not hesitate to pull the trigger on another animal unless he absolutely HAS to" Gazelle said guiding us up to a large wooden double door gate. The only thing we could do to show we understood was nod our heads. After that, Gazelle knocked on the door in an odd pattern which I could only assume was some sort of secret knock to help get into the sanctuary itself. I saw that there was a small plank missing where some animal stuck their eyes out.

"Who is it?" they asked, the voice was male.

"It's Gazelle. I found some soldiers defending a family from the zombies. They need a place to stay" Gazelle responded.

"Alright. Gimme a few seconds and I'll get the gate" the other animal said before walking away from the hole and then creaking could be heard. The gate was opening up, both sides were being pulled from the inside and we took it as an opportunity to go inside.

"Stay close to me" Gazelle ordered as we heard the gates being shut behind us and we entered through a large wooden door. The waiting room was made entirely of marble with beautiful furniture and there was incense burning inside, making the entire waiting room smell like lavender.

"They dump laundry detergent on the furniture or something?" Clawhauser asked himself aloud.

"I was just about to say the same thing" I said to Clawhauser. Gazelle lead us to the front desk where a brown furred Yak wearing torn and tattered up dark green shorts along with a belt carrying a few clips with bullets in them, as well as a few guns behind him was sitting.

"Welcome my friends to the Mystic Springs Oasis" the Yak said in a voice that only a hippie would speak in.

"Hello Yax, I brought some refugees as well as some soldiers I found defending those refugees. Pretty skilled fighters if I do say so myself" Gazelle said turning her head to Judy, Clawhauser, and myself.

"Ah, so I see. Unload yourselves brave warriors, for you will find no infected animals here" Yax told us walking towards another double wooden door right besides the desk. Once it was opened we saw a large open field with stone paths leading to different things such as pools, hot tubs, basketball courts, even a buffet booth.

"Wow" I heard Judy whispered. I looked to see her jaw was lowered at the sight of so many uninfected animals living in peace, just doing whatever they want under the stars with no zombies disturbing them at all. The only lights that illuminated the entire field were from the pools and torches that were lined up against the walls.

"It's beautiful" Clawhauser said in awe as we walked on the stepping-stone path, not even a speck of ashes or shards of glass littered the ground. They really do take good care of this place.

"Unwind yourselves and rest your tired muscles, my friends. Have something to eat too" Yax said before returning to the front desk.

"I'm gonna go get something to eat" Clawhauser told me before going to the buffet table. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see that the hot tub was empty.

"I think I'm gonna use the hot tub. It's been a while since I soaked myself in one" I said to Judy before walking towards it and unzipped my jacket and took off all my weapons in their casings before taking off all my clothes and reached into my bag changing into some black swimming trunks. Once I had them on, I stepped into the hot tub. It felt so much better than I last remembered. Letting out a loud sigh showed how relaxed I was getting in here, but the sounds of somebody else disrobing caught my eat and made me look up to see Judy changing into a bathing suit.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I just thought I'd join you" Judy said after putting her top on and getting into the water.

"Woah, it's a bit warmer than I'd thought it be" Judy said with a chuckle at the end and swam over to where I was sitting and sat right next to me.

"I haven't been in a hot tub since I was a kit" I said before dunking my head in the water and getting the entire top part of my body wet with every inch of fur soaked in the soothing hot water. My body was covered in scars that I gained over the years from fighting, they were mostly from the claws of another animal, a knife, and a few bullets. Judy didn't seem to take notice of them though as she just kept on talking and the water reached up to the bottoms of my shoulders, so I don't think she could see them.

"We never had hot tubs back at the Burrows. We only had bath tubs, it was the closest thing we could get to something like this" Judy told me.

"Well, this ain't the Burrows, Cottontail. This is the zombie apocalypse, and everything you do from now on leads to you live to die another day, or die to become the enemy" I tell her.

"Are you saying I should be worried about whether I'm gonna die or not?" she asked me.

"No, I'm saying you need to be cautious. I don't need to remind you that these things nearly infected all of our population and fed on our flesh in a war against them that we lost" I replied with a slightly stern tone.

"No you don't need to remind me. I've seen one of those things chase my dad across our carrot fields before I shot them down. It was chaos when they drove me to the train station to get here to plead our case to the embassy for help" Judy told me. So that raccoon wasn't her first zombie kill, she must have killed a few more with that double-barrel of hers.

"I was hoping maybe one day that a cure would come around and fix everything and things would go back to the way there were. But nothing came, and in the end we got a war and a nearly destroyed city" I said sighing and crackled my sore knuckles, they made cracking sounds due to all the stress put onto them from the many zombies I've had to punch when engaging them in close combat.

"How old were you when it started?" Judy asked it.

"I was a little kit when it started. The normal response for a child would be to be crying and hugging their parents, asking what was happening, but I knew things were BEYOND out of control and nothing was ever gonna be okay again" I told her, it was a very depressing memory of where I was when the zombies first attacked and spread the virus to every other animal populating the city.

"I take it you never got to have a normal childhood because of it?" Judy asked swimming up closer to me and I felt her place her paw on top of mine underneath the water for comfort.

"No, I decided something needed to be done about it so I began training to fight against the zombies. My sense of humor remained with me, but there were a lot of times I needed to get serious and toughen up to take out some zombies" I explained. The next thing I felt was another paw touch my shoulder, it was Judy's and she had taken her paw on mine and rubbed my shoulder with it.

"Oh that feels good" I said smiling and closing my eyes.

"You must have been a great soldier" Judy said as she massaged my shoulders.

"I guess. I mainly focused on protecting civilians and giving food to the animals who were less fortunate and were declared homeless when the zombies took it. I was one of the many of the few animals who refused to leave the city when evacuation orders were given. I would be willing to give my own life than just let a bunch of walking piles of wasted flesh take over my home" I said using both my paws to massage my neck which felt some tensity in it.

"Wow, you must have made some pretty big and risky decisions to get where you are now" Judy told me as I felt her paws gently circle my shoulder blades. I sighed and shook my head with my eyes closed.

"You have no idea" I retorted gently with a tired voice. My thoughts were interrupted when I saw Gazelle approached us.

"You guys might wanna get dressed and meet me in the back of the waiting room. Yax has something to ask of us" she said before leaving to probably go get Clawhauser to do the same thing. We both did as we were asked without hesitation and removed our bathing suits without facing the other and placing our clothes back on.

"Thanks for talking with me. It really helps taking off all the stress of living in a world where everything out here just wants to kill and eat you" I heard Judy tell me. I smiled and spoke back.

"No problem" I replied.

"One more thing, when can we talk about what happened to you before Zombietopia?" she asked. I just shook my head and chuckles, ruffling the small bits of fur standing up on her head.

"Nice try" I said before walking up to the lobby with Judy and Clawhauser following me there.

 **A/N: Now we've seen Nick and Judy have some alone time and get to bond. And Nick spoke about how he prepared to fight in the war and stayed behind to fight the zombies, but what happened to Nick before that made him tremble and nearly break into tears is still a mystery to Judy. I assure you it will be revealed a little bit later into the story but just not now. More to come in the next chapter. Please review, thanks!**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: The last chapter was when Nick's faction took the Jackal family they rescued from the zombies to the Mystic Springs Oasis, lead by Gazelle where Nick and Judy got to bond a little and he explained how he trained to fight the zombies and fought in the war since he was a little kit. Now this is where we left off, with Yax, the owner of the sanctuary asking a favor of Nick's faction. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Nick walked into the back room where Yax was waiting with Judy, Clawhauser, and Gazelle right behind him. All four of them wondered what this big 'Favor' was that Yax was about to ask of them.

"You wanted to see us?" Judy asked the Yak as he was now looking to them rather than out a window which gave the view of a building that was still on fire that was slowly dying as the night went on.

"Ah yes. I have something to ask" Yax said walking over to a desk and sitting with his hind legs crossed on a pillow behind.

"Everything here runs on gasoline. The generators feed on it and it is necessary to keep this entire sanctuary operating the way it does now" Yax said before taking out an empty red plastic gasoline canister on the desk in front of them.

"I take it you need more then?" Nick asked with his arms crossed.

"Yes, that is what I ask. Go to whatever gas station you can, or any abandoned vehicle that still may have gasoline in it's tank and fill at least five of these canisters up" Yax said before opening up a wardrobe up by both it's doors. The wardrobe itself wasn't filled with clothes, but with empty gas canisters, placing four of them next to the one on the desk.

"What makes you so sure there's even any gasoline left in this city?" Clawhauser piped into the conversation.

"The gas stations my friends are where it is harvested from below. The zombies may have taken the surface but their infected brains are too corrupted to discover what lies underneath" Yax said lighting a candle up with a match that lied on his desk and then shaking the candle to force the flame to die.

"Without the gasoline we can't power the generators. And without those generators there won't be any heat, we won't even be able to cook anything" Gazelle said stepping in front of Judy, Nick, and Clawhauser and stood right next to Yax.

"Besides, I've asked Yax to give to you one of the sanctuary's armored vehicles in exchange for obtaining the gasoline. And you will have gained a new warrior to your faction... me" Gazelle said. Nick thought long and hard about the offer that was on the table, if they had an armored vehicle they'd get past zombies easier and running them over would be easier since it would probably be taller than the convertible.

"Alright, we'll do it. But not now. It's too dark to see anything anyways and I don't think any of the fires we're gonna come across will be bright enough or last long enough to keep whatever's left of the city burning to thin crisps" Nick said pointing to the dying fire Yax was looking at earlier through the window.

"We've reached an agreement then" Yax said extending his hoof to Nick to shake, who took it into his paw willingly to shake.

"Yes" Nick put it simply before bidding Yax and Gazelle goodnight and walked off in the other direction out of the room and down the hall towards another part of the Oasis' waiting room where sleeping chambers resided which Yax had given them permission to use.

"Get some rest guys. We're gonna need it tomorrow. Goodnight" Nick said before walking into his room without another room. Judy was the only one who remained where she was standing when Nick and Clawhauser claimed their rooms. It might have been pretty nosy of her for still thinking, but she kept on wondering about what happened to Nick before the zombies attacked and why he wouldn't talk about it with any other animal. She stood like that for three minutes before claiming her own sleeping quarters.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

My room was right across the hall from Nick's and I changed into the pajamas I packed in my duffle bag and brushed my teeth. My first day in Zombietopia was pretty hectic, I managed to kill a few zombies on the first day as a soldier, that's good I suppose. But secret that Nick was keeping from me was all I could think about, was he ever gonna tell me or not? I shouldn't even be thinking about it, it's his secret and not mine, which meant it was his own business and it was his choice to talk about it or not with his friends or faction soldiers. Just after I spit my toothpaste into the sink and washed it all down the drain, a loud relaxed sigh caught my ear and I turned to hear that it came from Nick's room.

"Huh?" I wondered as I tip-pawed quietly across the hall and walked into Nick's room to only see him sitting on his bed, back against the wall, wearing light green pajamas, the bedside lamp lighting up the room and holding a brown hardback book in his paws, smiling as his eyes were fixated on the pages.

"Hey, Nick" I said gently getting his attention. The only response I got was his head turning to me and a single 'Hey' before turning back to the book. Without thinking of my actions, I approached the bed a little bit more and cleared my throat to try and get his attention, and it worked because he was looking at me again.

"So... what are you reading?" I asked. Nick just closed the book and handed it to me. Once the book was in my paws, I looked at the cover to see no illustrations on it, just some white lettering on the front. The title was really what took me by surprise 'Prrride and Prrrejudice' **(Pronounced Purr-ide and Purr-ejudice)**. This book was considered a classic.

"I didn't know you liked the classics" I said handing the book back to him. Nick just chuckled and set it on his lap before speaking.

"I don't normally read classics. But this one's special" he told me. I hopped onto the bed and sat down next to him on his right.

"What's so special about it?" I asked as I got myself comfortable.

"It's my favorite, it always has been ever since I was a little kit. It was my bedtime story every night. My mom would read me at least two chapters a night before bedtime" Nick told me. I smiled at the thought, that book must have meant something to him since it reminded him of how Zootopia was before the zombies took over.

"My mom always loved reading the classics. She always wanted to share them with me, and this one was the first one she ever read to me" Nick continued.

"What's it about? I've never read it before" I asked when he was done.

"It takes place in the 18th century. Every female's fantasy was to marry a rich male but there was one panther named Elizabeth who thought she didn't need a man to be happy. That is... until she meets an attractive lion named Mr. Darcy, and becomes very infatuated with him" Nick explained to me, it sounded like your typical love story that I would have read in high school, but never got the chance to. I could see tears glistening in Nick's eyes again but with a smile instead of a sad look and continued to talk.

"Every time we finished it, my mom asked me what I wanted to have read to me next and all I said was 'Prrride and Prrrejudice, mommy! Prrride and Prrrejudice' and all she did was chuckle and start the whole book over again. No matter how many times she read it to me, I never got tired of it and always went right to sleep and snuggled up to her when she finished the second chapter of the night" he continued with two tears dripping down both his eyes. That must have been a very sweet memory for him.

"What was your mom like?" I asked, but kind of regretted it in my head since that was a personal question. For some reason, Nick didn't say anything negative, he just kept the smile on his face and kept on talking.

"She was the most gentle fox you could ever meet. She always believed in me and told me to never give up on my dreams. Every time I got injured, she'd hold me close to her and kiss wherever it hurt. Every time I got bad dream she'd come in and sing me to sleep before carrying me back with her to sleep in her room with her. Every time I got bullied by another animal, she'd reassure me that everything they said was a lie and talk to their parents. My mom was there every waking minute of my life" he said, every word filled with warm emotion. He pulled something out of his pajama pocket and handed it to me, it was a photo of him as a little kit in a Scout's uniform smiling with his mom right behind him with her paws on his shoulders smiling too, standing outside of what I could only assume was their house.

"That was taken the day before the zombie riots happened" Nick told me as I gazed at the picture, she really did look like Nick described her, the most gentle and sweetest fox you could ever lay eyes on. She was wearing a purple dress and an apron, her eyes filled with happiness and love for her kit.

"She's beautiful, Nick. What happened to her though?" I asked after I handed the photo back to him.

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

My heart almost skipped a beat after Judy asked me that. I couldn't just leave her hanging, but I didn't wanna tell her what happened. There's no point in hiding it now, I had to come clean and tell her the truth about what happened.

"We were separated the day after the photo was taken. The minute I came home from a scout's meeting, there were animals in Military uniforms inside our house telling us to evacuate and that the city was being taken over by zombies. I got taken off to some bunker somewhere in the city to be trained to fight in the war while my mom was taken somewhere else" I began closing my eyelids halfway as I spoke.

"And you never saw her again?" she asked. I shook my head and spoke again.

"Not exactly. When the war was ending and the city was being evacuated, I saw my mom trying to get through the crowd of uninfected animals but some other animals who were my fellow soldiers held her back and forced her onto the train. I saw her with tears in her eyes crying out for my name and that's when the train left for the outside regions of the city. Never heard from her again after that, I don't even think she tried finding a way back to Zombietopia to try and find me" I said now trembling and tension in my voice. The tears began coming out of my eyes, blurring my vision and dripping onto my pajama bottoms. What I felt next was unexpected, Judy was hugging me and rubbing my back in soft small circles as her arms were wrapped around me.

"I'm so sorry. It must have been painful to just get to see your mom get evacuated like that without saying goodbye" she whispered in a comforting tone with her eyes closed. I hugged back.

"I'm also sorry. Sorry I kept it from you, and I'm sorry you had to see me like this, I'm trying to be strong... for you, and for Clawhauser, I really am but there's not one moment that I think of what my mother is doing without her son" I said to apologize.

"There's no need to be sorry. Everybody hurts sometimes" Judy told me. I just chuckled in between my tears.

"Are you just quoting the song? Or are you being serious?" I asked.

"I'm dead serious. It's good that you think about your mother, I'm thinking about my family too and if they're holding up well against the zombies. But maybe when we take back the city, you can see her again" she told me with her arms still wrapped around me, I didn't wanna let go either.

"I'd do anything just to look into her eyes and tell her how much I miss her and love her again" I said.

"You will, just have faith" Judy told me before letting go and I wiped the tears from my eyes.

"Thanks for talking with me... and the hug. I really needed it" I thanked her smiling. She just smiled at me before getting off the bed and cleared her throat to speak again.

"We'd better get some sleep. Yax still gave us a mission to do and I don't wanna be tired when we do it" she said.

"Goodnight, Judy" I said gently.

"Goodnight, Nick" and with that, she left the room and I was alone. I put the book back in my bag where it was and climbed under the covers before turning the lamp off and going right to sleep with Judy's comforting words settling deep into my memory as I slept. Maybe there was something to look forward to after we took back Zombietopia after all.

 **A/N: Hope you liked it, it may have had different feels from the rest of the story, but at least Nick admitted his secret to Judy about his mother and how he misses her so much, not to mention was given some friendly comfort from Judy. Next update is where the quest for gasoline begins, and lots more. Please review, thanks!**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: In the last update, Yax had given the faction a mission to obtain gasoline to power the Oasis's generators in exchange for an armored vehicle and Gazelle joining the faction. Judy had also discovered what Nick was hiding, that he had been in pain over being separated from his mother when the zombies took over and hadn't seen her since the evacuations. This is where we left off. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Everyone had woken up early to get started on their mission and gotten enough ammunition for their guns and were waiting outside the gates that lead outside of the oasis. Clawhauser was holding a black handle connected to a small red wagon that carried the empty plastic canisters inside, a burlap tarp was tied over them for protection.

"Alright guys. This place needs gasoline to keep the generators running or else it'll go dark like the rest of the city, we can't let that happen" Nick said, making sure Judy and Clawhauser got the full details of the mission.

"Don't worry, Nick. As long as we don't have any zombies attacking us, we should be okay" replied Judy as she inspected the blades of her tomahawks and placed them back in the holding spots in her belt.

"WAIT!" a voice called out. They all turned their heads to see Gazelle with her cloak on running towards them.

"I'm coming with you. A task like this can get pretty dangerous if not properly prepared, you'll need my help on this one" she told them. Judy and Clawhauser were a bit shocked that she was willing to help them, Nick approached Gazelle and spoke.

"Okay, but I wanna make one thing clear. I'm in charge here, you wanna live to see tomorrow, you do exactly as I say... are we clear?" Nick asked, making sure she understood.

"Yes sir. Don't worry about my safety, you saw how good I was with my bow the first time we met" Gazelle replied with a nod. And with that, Nick signaled the gate-keeper to open the gates. Once they were opened, Nick lead the faction out of the sanctuary and back into Zombietopia.

"There's a gas station fifteen blocks away from here. It may be far away but there aren't any other ones closer to the oasis" Nick said as he walked ahead of the others. Judy walked past Clawhauser and Gazelle to walk next to Nick.

"Hey, I never got to tell you I enjoyed our time together last night" said Judy rubbing the back of her neck.

"Don't get any ideas, cottontail. We just talked and I told you about my separation from my mother, nothing more" Nick said with a stern look.

"I wasn't getting any ideas, I swear. I was just saying I enjoyed listening to you, and maybe we could be a little more than just faction mates... like friends?" she asked. Nick was taken aback by the question but took a deep breath.

"You want to be my friend?" Nick replied as he kept on walking and lead the others past the eighth block to the gas station.

"I do, I really do. You told me about what happened years ago before the war and I know that wasn't easy, and I swear I'm not gonna say anything to the others. That's something only friends do, tell each other secrets and talk to them about it" Judy said placing her paw on Nick's left forearm. Nick now knew that Judy was right, only something like that could be done between friends, and there were a lot of other traits he admired about her, like her smile, her concern for others, her bravery as a warrior, and how fast she caught onto the zombie killing, even learning one from him.

"Alright, friends" Nick said offering his right paw to Judy, who shook it with her left paw.

"Friends" Judy said with a firm grip on Nick's paw. The minute they had let go, they had arrived at a large gas station that looked a lot like a truck stop where truckers delivering large cargo containers would stop by to eat, fuel their trucks up, and use the bathroom as well. There was a small mini-van in the parking lot of the mini mart that looked pretty dented up as well as scratched and had paint chips falling off it.

"We made it guys, now let's fill those canisters up with as much as we can" Nick said turning his head to Clawhauser and Gazelle before walking into the mini-mart and looking to Judy.

"Judy, I want you in here with me. Let's get whatever food is left in here and give it to the oasis to use as emergency supplies" Nick explained, all Judy could do was nod and run over to the inside of the mini-mart. Upon entering, Nick handed Judy a plastic cart and told her to start filling it up with whatever could be considered food.

Back outside, Clawhauser and Gazelle took the canisters out of the wagon and put the nozzles in the canisters after the caps were removed. Gazelle saw that Clawhauser was struggling to work the machine, which made her chuckle and walk over to him.

"Having trouble?" she asked as he was repeatedly jabbing his claw on the type of gas he wanted to put in the canister but nothing happened.

"I can't make this work without any money. And I think I left my wallet in my bag back at the oasis. You wouldn't happen to have a credit card would you?" Clawhauser asked.

"No, but I do know a secret" Gazelle said taking out a pocket knife and using it to loosen the screws on the front of the panel to remove it and sever one yellow wire in two as well as a red one before using two pieces of gum attached to the side of the gas booth to connect the opposite sets of wires together and the gas began to pour out the nozzle into the canister.

"How'd you do that?" Clawhauser asked in awe.

"I know a think or two about wiring. You're welcome" Gazelle said before going back to the booth she was operating and did the same thing she did before to add gasoline to her canister and they both continued to fill up the canisters they had until they were completely full.

"Is that all of them?" Clawhauser asked as he loaded the last canister onto the wagon.

"Yes, now we can tell Nick and Judy we're ready to go" Gazelle replied before her eyes caught something. Standing on the other side of the street was a small animal wearing a black cloak, she couldn't even see their faces underneath the hood over their head. Clawhauser saw that Gazelle was staring and turned his head in her direction to see the animal.

"Who's that?" Clawhauser asked. Gazelle didn't give a response and saw that a hoof pulled out a remote control looking device.

"Hey! What are you doing!?" Gazelle called out to the animal, hoping to get a response from the hooded animal but got nothing. The hoof of the animal pressed down on the front of the controller and caused something less than expected, the busted up mini-van blew up to smithereens. The force of the explosion forced Clawhauser and Gazelle to land on the ground and and get back up with some sore spots on their elbows, and midsections of their backs.

"Guys!" they heard two voices call out. They both got up to face Nick and Judy who had left the food they were collecting back inside the mini-mart.

"What happened!?" Judy asked.

"That car just blew up. We saw some animal holding a detonator or something and press the button to blow the whole thing up" Clawhauser said as he got up and rubbed his sore backside.

"Where are they?" Nick asked as he helped Gazelle up. She was about to point to where she saw them, but now they weren't there anymore. They must have ran off after the explosion and they had their backs turned the minute the vehicle had blown up.

"They were right there. I saw them, Clawhauser did too!" Gazelle said pointing to where she saw them.

"Well whoever they were, they just gave away our position. This place is gonna be swarming with zombies within five minutes" Nick said with irritation in his voice.

"Too late" Judy piped in pointing at at least twenty zombies running towards them from down the street.

"Clawhauser, get the gasoline inside!" Nick ordered rushing back inside the mini-mart with Judy and Gazelle following him. The fox had picked up the carts filled with food and ran to the back area where only employees were allowed and opened the door.

"We'll hide the food and gas in here. We can't risk the zombies finding all the supplies" Nick said. Clawhauser complied and put the wagon holding the canisters by the food and shut the door.

"Alright guys. Four of us against twenty of them. Just remember your training and you'll make it out of this" Nick said taking his machete out, Judy did the same with her tomahawks, Clawhauser took out a driver club from his golf bag and Gazelle prepared her bow.

"Here's the plan. Five times four is twenty so we each kill five. Sound fair?" Nick suggested.

"Good enough for me" Clawhauser said taking a defensive position with the club held tightly in his paws. Judy then saw that one of the aisles carried plastic water guns for children, as well as selfie-sticks, and duct tape. She even saw that the front counter of the store had lighters and lighter fluid.

"I've got an idea" Judy said before putting her tomahawks back on her belt and ran towards the water guns.

"Judy! What are you doing!? Get back here!" Gazelle shouted, trying to get Judy to come back and draw her weapons to fight. Nick just spoke.

"No, let her go. I think she's onto something" Nick said simply, lowering his machete, the tip touching the tiled floor. Judy jumped on top of one of the aisles and grabbed four water guns, four selfie-sticks, and two rolls of duct tape. Once she had gotten those, she got a large box of lighter fluid from behind the counter and four lighters as well. When Judy came back, she laid the supplies she had just collected in front of them.

"Everyone, pick a water gun, fill it with lighter fluid, and then tape a lighter to the end of the selfie-stick, and then tape the handle to the front of the gun" Judy instructed. Nick knew what Judy was doing now.

"Makeshift flamethrowers, Judy you're a genius" Nick said before claiming a gun and preparing it like Judy had told him. Gazelle and Clawhauser put their weapons away and did the same. Once Judy had prepared her gun she lit the lighter and stood her ground with the others.

"I don't think these will be enough to kill them, but they should slow them down and make them immobile for a while. Attack when they're too distracted by the fire" Nick had told everyone who nodded to confirm. Within minutes the zombies were already at the mini-mart's doors and knocked them down. All twenty were cornering them and walking to kill them.

"NOW!" Nick exclaimed, everyone pumped their water guns up and shot a long stream of flames at the zombies, which made them scream and cover their faces as the flames had set fire to their bodies.

"Attack now, while they're blinded!" Nick said, making everyone withdraw their weapons and either shooting them in the head or cutting the heads off. Within minutes, the zombies were now lying lifeless on the floor with their bodies burning to a crisp because of the fire.

"Good thinking Judy, if hadn't thought of this we'd be like them, maybe even zombie food right now" Nick said dropping his flamethrower to the floor.

"Yeah, clever bunny" Gazelle said, complimenting Judy's thinking and bravery.

"I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you. You would have been a great addition to the ZPD if the zombies hadn't ruined everything" Clawhauser said smiling before going to the back to get the wagon of gasoline and the food. Just as Judy was about to join them, Nick stopped her by placing his paw on her shoulder.

"You were very brave just now, and clever. I don't think I'd be able to come up with the idea of making a flamethrower out of a water gun, selfie-sticks, and some lighters" Nick congratulated.

"It was nothing, really" Judy said chuckling and rubbing the back of her neck.

"But it was. Something like this deserves a special reward. That's why I'm promoting you to the faction's second-in-command" Nick told Judy, who's heart began racing with excitement at what she was told, Nick was promoting her.

"Congratulations, Judy" Nick said holding his paw out to shake. But instead of shaking, Judy jumped towards Nick and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. Nick didn't do anything but hug back smiling.

"I'm proud of you" Nick whispered smiling.

"Guys! Come look at this!" Gazelle called out. Judy and Nick broke their hug and ran to the front where Gazelle and Clawhauser were down on one knee looking at something in Clawhauser's paw.

"We found this by the car's ruins" said Clawhauser. Nick walked up to him and took it into his paw to see it was a part of a pipe bomb with some smoke damage on it with the scent of gunpowder attached to it.

"It doesn't make sense. Who would want us dead?" Judy asked.

"I don't know, but you remember when I told you there was a traitor who released the first zombies from their containment and caused the war?" Nick asked.

"Yeah" all three of them said.

"I don't think they left Zombietopia after that. I think they're still hiding here, probably killing off any survivors they come across" Nick said looking at where Gazelle had pointed at before the zombies showed up.

"Why? What would they have to gain by killing us?" Clawhauser asked.

"I don't know. But something tells me this isn't the last time we see them" Nick said now looking down at the piece of the pipe bomb in his paw, clutching it tight.

 **A/N: I hope you enjoyed that action packed chapter, and the revelation of a traitor hiding in the ruins killing survivors of the war. And Judy was given the position of second-in-command for her notable bravery and clever thinking. Now more problems have made themselves present for the faction. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Quite the update last time huh? The faction's quest for gasoline ended up with a car being blown up by an animal who may be the mysterious traitor who let the zombies out of containment, Judy saves her fellow faction members by making flamethrowers out of selfie-sticks, plastic water guns, lighters, duct tape, and lighter fluid. Now Nick has made her the second in command of the faction, and become friends with Judy. Now this is where we left off.**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

Clawhauser had set the wagon by Yax' desk and I slammed that pipe bomb piece on the desk's surface after explaining what had happened.

"That was all that was left of the bomb. I assume that whoever that was attached it under the van's chassis" I explained to Yax as he analyzed the bomb fragment.

"And you believe it was the same one who let the zombies out into the streets?" Yax asked.

"Not a doubt in my mind that that's who it was. Probably killing off any other survivors for whatever reason" I replied. Judy then stepped in front of me and spoke.

"It doesn't make any sense though. What would this animal have to gain by killing any other uninfected animals like themselves?" it was a fair question, I'll admit. My brain was puzzled trying to figure out why that animal would try killing other survivors, weren't we all trying to achieve one goal, survival?

"That, I don't know. But something tells me the closer we get into our mission to take the city back, the more we'll see them. When we're able to catch them, we'll make them face justice for their crimes" I said turning to Gazelle and Clawhauser who were right behind me with their luggage by their hind paws and hooves. The minute we got back I told them to get their things and be ready to leave the oasis by the time Yax had given what he had promised us in exchange.

"Thank you. Zootopia will have you to thank if they're caught and the city will be taken back from the zombies" Yax said smiling gratefully.

"I believe you had promised us an armored vehicle you said you had?" Judy asked, getting back to the subject about our deal.

"Ah, yes. Follow me valiant heroes" Yax said getting up from the desk and leading us to the other end of the oasis through where the other uninfected animal refugees were minding their own business until we reached a metal door. Once it was unlocked, he turned on a switch to turn the lights on. The room was a garage and several armored vehicles were in the room.

"Wow, you have quite the collection, Yax" I heard Clawhauser say when he was looking at his reflection in the shining chrome paint-job of one of the vehicles we passed by.

"Thank you, my friend. We always kept these safely locked away in case this sanctuary was ever compromised and we had no choice but to order evacuation to someplace else safe" Yax said walking to a wall that had several keys hanging on hooks.

"This one is all yours my friends" I heard Yax say before taking one of the keys off the ring and tossed them to me. I caught it and looked at it as it lied in the center of my paw.

"A Hummer?" I asked. Yax responded by pointing down to the very end of the garage to a gray Hummer that had a bumper with a winch on it, and a spare tire rack on the back bumper.

"It'll do. It's got the armor, and it's pretty big enough to live in if we don't know where to go next" Judy pointed out, I agreed with her and got into the driver's seat.

"Oh, Clawhauser. Check in the trunk, I left a little goodbye present for you" I heard Yax say before turning my head to see Clawhauser open the back and pull out a large Gatling gun.

"Woah! This thing is awesome!" he cheered out like a little cub going to the candy store.

"It was collecting dust in the weapons closet and no animal has ever used it. So I figured, why not give it to a warrior worthy of someone willing to sacrifice themselves for the lives of survivors and refugees in these dark times?" Yax said and I just chuckled watching Clawhauser make some poses with the gun, he even posed mounting it over his shoulder.

"Hey, Rambo! Put that back in the trunk and hop in the back. We've gotta head out!" I called out. Clawhauser just did as asked and shut the back as soon as the gun was back where he found it.

"I cannot thank you enough, Yax" I saw Gazelle say before hugging the yak and getting into the back seat with Clawhauser.

"Where to next?" asked Judy.

"We'll head further up the city until we find someplace to rest for the night. We'll make a couple stops to get food and hopefully take out some zombies on the way. But priority one right now is one more animal to add to the faction" I said sticking the keys in the ignition and saw the garage door open. That was probably the signal that it was okay to head out and drive into the city, so that was what I did and drove away from the oasis and back out into Zombietopia.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The Hummer drove further away from the oasis with each minute and soon something tiny hit the windshield and got Judy's attention.

"What was that? Ash?" the bunny asked, mistaking it for what was on the ground everywhere back where she was in what was all that remained of the city's center. Nick looked up at where Judy was looking at and saw the small white speck melt into water on the surface of the windshield.

"Don't worry, Judy, it's just snow. We're heading into Tundratown now" Nick said shifting the vehicle into four wheel drive since the roads were bound to be icy and slippery.

"It's nice isn't it? But don't get so comfortable with is, this place gets both snow AND ash since this where most of the zombies took territory from during the war" Nick said to Judy as he switched the wipers on as gray and white specks hit the windshield. Judy looked out the window to see the sidewalks and other areas littered with snow and ashes. She even saw a large mansion that still had embers burning on it, as well as scorched to the wooden foundations that made it.

"Why are there so many big houses here?" Judy asked as she noticed almost every piece of destroyed property was a large mansion.

"The big ones served as fortresses since they were gated up. They were pretty expensive and they didn't wanna risk anyone breaking in, not even the zombies. So, whatever animal lived there considered it their only safe place away from any infected animal that tried to destroy them" Nick explained making a right turn and saw a home with the gate taken down. There was smoke damage on the two doors and some of the metal bars were bent.

"I don't think zombies couldn't do something like that alone. Unless they had an army" Gazelle said as she saw what happened to the gate.

"This may have been where the most zombie territory was claimed during the war, but it was also where many of the zombies froze to death" Nick said as he drove up the driveway to the house.

"What do you mean they froze to death?" Judy asked after she was finished gazing at the corpses of dead zombies lying down in the snow and ashes.

"Since it was cold all the time here, the freezing temperatures froze the zombies to their cores. So, staying out in the cold too long was also one of the many ways to kill a zombie" Nick said before parking the car in front of a large mansion and walked up to the door.

"Hello!? Anyone here!?" Nick called out. No answer came but echoes of what he had just said bouncing off the walls. What Nick did next was knock several times, but still no answer.

"Guys, come on out. Nobody's here, we got the entire place to ourselves" the fox commanded, allowing Judy, Gazelle and Nick to get out and walk up to the house.

"Is it unlocked?" Gazelle asked.

"I think so. And if there are any zombies in these rooms or hallways, take them out and throw the bodies in the back" Nick said before turning the door knob and allowing themselves into the house. Clawhauser went over to the light switch that was right beside the front door and flicked it several times.

"Electricity's out" he told everyone else.

"Like every other place out here in Zombietopia" Nick said before noticing several candles laid on the tables, windowsills, mantelpieces, and even in areas around the hallway.

"Light all the candles, the more we can see in this place, the better. If you see a candle, light it up" Nick ordered as he took a packet of matches out of his pocket and took one out, lighting the wicks of every candle in the living room after he had handed a match to Gazelle, Judy, and Clawhauser who went off in separate areas of the house to light the candles.

Within thirty minutes, every room in the house was lit with candlelight and the four faction members now sat on the couch in the living room.

"Whoever owned this place sure had a lot of candles" Gazelle said as she lied down to stretch her forearms on the couch.

"Nearly all the city had their power stripped from them during the war. It was only a necessity to have a lot of candles or a backup generator to keep warm" Nick said as he took his jacket off revealing his gray t-shirt and threw it to the floor.

"So what do you say, Nick? What's the plan?" Judy asked.

"We'll stay here for the night and take whatever food's left in the morning before we leave" Nick said in a tired voice before letting out a tired yawn. Gazelle and Clawhauser got up and went upstairs to claim a room to sleep in for the night, but Judy was the only who remained where she was on the couch, right next to Nick.

"What are you still doing here? Aren't you gonna pick a room?" Nick asked.

"Actually, I'd rather spend some time with you" Judy said as she scooted closer to the fox and snuggled into his side.

"Wow, you're so warm" she whispered, nuzzling herself into the fabric of Nick's shirt. Nick then placed his paw on Judy's back and felt a surge of cold go through him.

"And you're freezing. You're like a block of ice" Nick joked as he now wrapped his entire forearm around her to help her get warmer.

"Yeah, aren't you?" asked Judy. The only response she got from the fox was him shaking his head.

"No, I've stayed in several harsh climates when I fought in the war, even gone several nights without sleeping in a bed and had to resort to just lying down on a blanket on a hard floor. Hot, cold, it doesn't matter... it's all the same to me" Nick said as he got more relaxed into the couch with Judy still close to him.

"You remember that 'Prrride and Prrrejudice' book you said your mother used to read to you all the time?" Judy asked when the both were warm enough from their huddling together. Nick looked to her and raised a brow.

"Um, yeah... why?" he asked.

"I was wondering if you could read it to me. I never got to read that one back in school" she said. Nick could only smile and sigh.

"Alright, I'll be right back" Nick said before going back outside and coming back a few minutes later with the book in one paw, and a large apricot colored blanket in the other.

"I figured we'd both need one if we're gonna get through the night in the cold" Nick said before lying down on his back on the couch and Judy lied down next to him on his right side, still huddling up to him to keep warm and placed the blanket over the both of them.

"Comfy there, Cottontail?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you, Nick" Judy thanked as she was still snuggling into Nick's side.

"No problem. Ready to begin?" asked the fox before she replied with a lone nod and he opened the book up, flipping through the introductory pages until he reached the first one and cleared his throat.

"Here we go. Chapter One..."

 **A/N: I hope you liked the ending, I wanted to have a little moment with Nick and Judy alone together like a couple chapters ago and get even closer. What comes next for the faction though, find out in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: The last update had a very sweet moment between Judy and Nick, snuggling up covered by a blanket on the couch and him reading her 'Prrride and Prrrejudice', his favorite book after they had taken an armored vehicle from the oasis and driving it to Tundratown where they took a large mansion left behind by the owners as shelter. This is where we left off, enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The sun's light wasn't strong enough to pierce through the cloud barriers that covered Tundratown and it's skies, but it was enough to illuminate a small hint of daylight through the windows of the house. Nick and Judy were asleep on the couch, never moved an inch as they slept, the blanket still covered them and the book was in still in Nick's paw, one of his claws was in between certain pages in the book where he had left off before drifting off into a peaceful rest. Judy had a smile on her face as she slept, she was amazed at how Nick had read the book to her and enjoyed letting his narration of each page lull her to sleep along with the heartbeat in his chest.

"Mmmmmmm" Judy hummed in her sleep as she found herself opening her eyes to reveal she was still snuggled up to Nick, her head lying against his chest. Soon, memories of the previous night filled her memory, she had fallen asleep to his narration of 'Prrride and Prrrejudice' and had stopped at the part where Mr. Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine harasses Elizabeth into renouncing him, saying he's engaged to her daughter. She was incredibly indulged in the story.

"No wonder that was Nick's bedtime story when he was younger" Judy had whispered to herself before looking upwards to see Nick's sleeping form. He took gentle and soft breaths as he slept, Judy had to admit he looked to peaceful as he slept.

"Hey, Nick. Time to wake up" She whispered as she had gently placed her paws on the front and back of his shoulder and shook it gently. The gentle shaking was enough to make him open his eyes halfway and turn his head towards her with a small smile.

"Good morning, Cottontail" Nick said placing his paw on her back and rubbing it in small circles.

"Good morning to you too, Nick" Judy said with a purr in her voice. The two were enjoying each other's company snuggled up to one another.

"I'm really enjoying the story. Especially how you narrate it, I was really impressed" Judy said as she felt the warmth of Nick's paws rubbing her back in circles.

"Maybe we can finish it another time?" Nick offered.

"Sure thing, I wanna know how it ends" Judy said. Their happy thoughts were ruined by a familiar voice sounding like it was clearing it's throat. Both the fox and bunny turned their heads to the direction of the staircase that lead to the upstairs bedrooms to see Clawhauser and Gazelle smirking. Her hooves on her hips, and his arms crossed against his chest.

"Nothing happened" Nick said as he kicked the blanket off Judy and himself before getting off the couch and retrieving his jacket from the floor.

"Then how do you explain you two cuddling like we found you?" Gazelle asked with one eyebrow raised. Judy sat up and spoke.

"We were both cold last night. Since there wasn't any heat, Nick got a blanket and covered us both. We huddled together for extra warmth, after a while we both were bored so Nick was reading to me and we both fell asleep in the middle of a chapter" Judy explained as she was now stretching her legs and did some other stretches. Nick had placed the book in one of the inside pockets of his jacket before zipping the zipper halfway up his torso.

"Oh, sorry" Clawhauser said walking away into the kitchen.

"Any food in there?" Nick called out.

"A couple boxes of cereal and pancake batter. A couple bottles of water too, nothing else" he heard Clawhauser call back out.

"Good enough. Take it all with us!" Nick called back before walking towards the window and looking to see if there were any zombies outside.

"Anything out there?" Judy asked.

"Only three zombies that aren't frozen. They will be after an hour two" Nick answered turning his head away from the window and assembling the other faction members to the coffee table, sitting in the same spot he and Judy slept on.

"Okay, here's the new plan; we're gonna circle the town and search for survivors and if there's a sanctuary or safe haven away from the zombies, that's where we'll take them" Nick said.

"Good enough for me, but how do we know if there really is a sanctuary?" Gazelle asked.

"Oh, believe me... there is one" Nick said standing up and readjusting the shoulders of his jacket.

"Where is it and who runs it?" Clawhauser asked in curiosity.

"His name is Mr. Big. Before the zombies showed up, and the war he was the most feared crime boss in Tundratown. Now his place is a giant zombie-proof fortress" Nick said pacing around the piano and his claws tracing around the keys.

"Great! Then that's where we'll take the survivors if we come across any" Judy said happily looking to the others who nodded smiling except for Nick.

"Yeah, but going there can be a bad idea for us because Mr. Big really does not like me" Nick said sitting down at the bench in front of the piano with a velvet cushion.

"Why not? What did you do?" Judy asked approaching the fox and placing her paw on his knee.

"During the fourth year of the war... I may have blown up his very expensive car that had several zombies surrounding it, at least fifty of them when I saved him and his polar bear bodyguards. He was more concerned about the fact his car was on fire rather than the fact I just saved his life" Nick said, a little bit nervous about the memory. The others eyes were widened in shock, Clawhauser let out a small whistle and Gazelle only mouthed out the word 'Wow'.

"That really is something to be mad at another animal for. But it's the zombie apocalypse, life's more important than some luxury vehicle" Judy said a little disgusted at why Mr. Big would be angry with Nick for.

"That's what I told him right after I saved him, but he wasn't having anything of what I was trying to say. He had the biggest tantrum I had ever seen in my life" Nick said which made Judy chuckle at the thought of someone having a massive temper tantrum over a destroyed car.

"It's not funny. He's put a bounty on my head ever since the war ended, not to mention he knows I never left the city" Nick said with narrowed eyes.

"Well then what do we do if we come across anyone working for him?" Judy asked.

"I think that's an easy question to answer. We fight them until they're out cold or they're too tired to fight" Gazelle piped in.

"I agree with her" Clawhauser said pointing to Gazelle while looking at Nick and Judy. The sound of glass breaking filled the ears of all the room's occupants and they turned to the window.

"What the heck was that?" Judy whispered to herself aloud for everyone to hear. Nick ran up to the window and cupped his paws close to his eyes like binoculars and saw that two polar bears were searching through a house that was almost destroyed and nearly tipping it upside down looking for something or some animal.

"Looks like Mr. Big's thrown a huge search party just for me" Nick said turning away from the window and pulling his pistol out from his belt, taking the clip out to check if it was fully loaded with enough bullets and put the clip back in before loading the gun.

"What? Who's out there?" Clawhauser asked, placing his hand on his golf bag, preparing to reach for a club to fight with if he needed it.

"Kevin and Raymond, Mr. Big's head bodyguards. They were also the ones I saved when I blew up the car along with Big himself" Nick said putting the gun back in it's case and took out his machete in it's place.

"Are they coming over here?" Gazelle asked, a little bit worried.

"Not a doubt they are. We'll sneak out through the back door the minute we hear them enter" the fox said before walking towards the back door, with the others withdrawing their weapons and following him.

"Wait for the signal" Nick whispered, placing his one free paw on the doorknob. The door broke down and wood chips flung from it, even near where the faction was standing.

"I'll go last, the rest of you go ahead of me, alright?" Nick ordered, in which they all nodded, not wanting to be heard by the polar bear guards that had just barged in.

"We know you're in there, Wilde! Come out!" Raymond shouted. That was when Nick had gently pulled on the knob and pushed the door forwards, nudging his head towards the outside to let Judy, Clawhauser, and Gazelle know it was time to head out. After the others were out, Nick shut the door behind him, and ran behind them.

"Ahem!" a voice called out. All four faction members turned their heads after they stopped running to see Kevin and Raymond standing in the snow, with angry looks on their faces, and cracking their knuckles.

"Hey boys, long time no see. Still doing Mr. Big's dirty work?" Nick asked as he placed his left paw on the handle of his machete, ready to withdraw it from it's case if needed. Judy did the same with her tomahawks, but was worried about Nick taking on these guys by himself. Zombies were one thing but uninfected polar bears were another thing, they knew how to fight back, while the zombies didn't.

"Yeah, and he wants you alive so he can deal with you himself" Raymond said with a growl.

"As well as any other animals with you. He wants you to pay big time for what you did to his car" Kevin piped in, shrugging his shoulders and limbering up for preparing to take Nick down if necessary if he decided to refuse to cooperate.

"Ain't happening now, and never will be" Nick said as he now fully took out his machete, which signaled Judy to take out her weapons and only stand where they stood in the freezing cold snow as Raymond and Kevin charged at them. When Kevin got close enough he jumped high onto his arm and spun around, cutting through Kevin's jacket and arm, forming a cut that bled the minute the sharp blade lashed out against the surface of his arm.

"Rarrrgh!" Kevin roared in anger and pain, placing his other paw on where the blood dripped down. Raymond tried attacking in response with a punch, but Nick did a back flip into the snow which made the punch miss him and hit Kevin in his chest, knocking him to the snow.

"This is the reason you guys never caught me. I'm too fast and agile for you, while you were off playing gangster with Mr. Big, I was fighting a war and saving other animals' lives" Nick said as he twirled the machete's handle in his claws. Raymond was in shock seeing how he had kit Kevin instead of his desired target and tried charging at Nick again, only to feel something pounce on his back, knocking him to the snowy ground.

"Couldn't just let you have all the fun, could I?" Judy asked before using the end of her sawed-off double-barrel to hit Raymond in the back of his head, knocking him out and leaving a huge bruise that was slightly visible underneath his white fur.

"Not really, no" Nick answered playfully with a tiny chuckle afterwards. The sound of the snow crunching underneath some animal's weight caught their attention to see Kevin was getting up from the ground and attempted to grab Nick.

"Fore!" Clawhauser's voice cried out and Kevin turned to his left to see the overweight cheetah with a Driver club in his paws. The club hit Kevin right in between his nose and front set of teeth, sending him back to the ground with massive force put into the swing that had attacked him.

"You mess with my buddy, you mess with me too, frosty" Clawhauser said with a stern look as he pulled another club out the bag and swiped it from underneath Kevin's hind paws as he tried to get up, forcing him back into the snow.

"Okay, you wanna play tough, chubby? Come on! Let's play tough!" Raymond said getting back up and pulling out a stun gun. Just as when the bear was about to pull the trigger and send ten thousand volts into Clawhauser's body, an arrow went right through the gun and forced it deep into the snow.

"You didn't forget all about me, did you?" Gazelle asked as she walked up to Raymond and stomped on his hind paw with her hoof and jabbed his chest and stomach with her elbows and punching him upside the jaw.

"O. M. Goodness. I think I'm in love" Clawhauser said to himself as he saw Gazelle nearly knock the wind out of Raymond. When Raymond was on his knees, groaning in pain at the punches Gazelle had delivered onto his body, she had kicked him with her hind hoof in the face, giving him a black left eye and a cut a small bleeding cut right beside it.

"Have an ICE day, honey" Gazelle said before winking to the pain-stricken Raymond.

"Wow, and I thought you were just a pretty face" Nick complimented with wide eyes at how well Gazelle had fought.

"Thanks, I've had my fair share of combat training before the war" she said picking her bow back up from the snow and taking out the arrow that was right in the middle of Raymond's destroyed stun gun. Within a minute, Kevin had gotten back up and pulled out a small tranquilizer pistol and shot Nick, Judy, Clawhauser, and Gazelle in the necks, knocking them out and flopping into the snow unconsciously.

 **A/N: Well, there you have it. More action and Clawhauser realizing he's in love with Gazelle after seeing how well she fights, and why Mr. Big wants Nick so bad after he destroyed a very expensive car during the war that he owned. So, what will happen now? Find out in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: We had some action in the last update, not against the dead but the living, as Mr. Big's polar bear henchmen, Kevin and Raymond try to capture Nick and make him pay for saving Mr. Big's life and destroying his car during the war. But, it was in vain, even though everyone put up a good fight, they got tranquilized and captured. What will happen now? Read to find out, enjoy!**

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

I woke up feeling dizzy and lightheaded, my vision was pretty blurry, I couldn't make out what I was seeing. All I saw was black fuzzy carpet and a blur of colors I could recognize as Nick's. From his fur, to his jacket, I could tell that was definitely Nick.

"Judy. Judy, wake up" I heard Nick's voice whisper to me. I tried to move my paws to my sides to help me stand up, but for some reason, I found it extremely difficult to separate my paws an inch away from one another and I put my paws in front of me. My vision had now fully readjusted and back to the way it was and saw that I had silver cuffs binding my paws in front of me, Nick was wearing them around his paws too, Clawhauser and Gazelle too had the bindings on them.

"What happened? Where are we?" I asked as I sat up, regaining my upper back strength and pulling myself up to face Nick.

"We're in Kevin and Raymond's car right now. They're taking us to Mr. Big" Nick whispered to me. I looked around to see were in the back seat of some gaudy tacky limousine and the partition was fully up, blocking the view of the driver's and shotgun seats.

"This is bad" Clawhauser muttered.

"Don't worry. I can get us out of here" I told him, giving him a reassuring face. I looked to my belt to see my tomahawks were gone, even my sawed-off double-barrel wasn't in it's casing on my back anymore.

"They took our weapons. My machete and pistol, Clawhauser's golf clubs, Gazelle's bow and arrows... everything. Probably stowed them away in the trunk" Nick said as I was looking around for my weapons.

"You think you can pick the locks with your claws?" I asked Nick.

"No, my claws aren't that sharp enough to pick through the locking mechanism on these things. I haven't taken good care of my claws since the war ended" Nick said looking down at his dull claws, they looked like they needed to be cleaned up, just like his bruised paws that looked like they were sore from punching something (Probably zombies).

"Woah woah woah, wait you guys... you feel that?" Gazelle asked, we were all turning our heads left and right as we felt the car slowing down.

"The car's slowing down. What's going on? Are we stopping?" I asked Nick, who jumped up on his hind paws and looked up the window to see something and looked back down.

"We're at Mr. Big's estate and sanctuary" Nick said. Just as he had finished saying that, the doors opened up to reveal Raymond and Kevin, and they had bandages and gauze with some blood seeping out from underneath them, which probably came from all the damage we dealt on them when we were fighting them back at the mansion we spent the night at. Kevin was carrying all our weapons in a white plastic trash back, I could tell because I could see Gazelle's bow sticking out from the side, getting ready to break through the plastic surface at any minute.

"Get out the car" Raymond said holding up his paw and formed into a fist, revealing it was bruised from punching Kevin the stomach a bunch of times by accident.

"No need to be so hostile, we were gonna get out anyways" Nick said giving off some attitude back at him as he got out the car first. I decided to get out next and Clawhauser got out third and lastly to get out and follow behind us was Gazelle.

"Mr. Big doesn't like to be kept waiting, let's move" Kevin said and we began moving towards the large establishment and once we got inside, I felt a burst of hot air hit our fur. It sure felt nice, even after standing out in the snow fighting Raymond and Kevin for that long. After walking up a flight of stairs and were guided to the last door on the left, we were in a very large office. A desk stood in the middle of the room and we were made to stand on the center of the rug in the middle of the room itself.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Raymond walked over to behind the desk, and turned a small chair in the middle of the desk to reveal a small Arctic Shrew in a tuxedo. Nick recognized the Shrew all too well as Mr. Big, he looked exactly the same as the day he saw him when he saved him during the war. Gazelle, Clawhauser, and Judy a little bit shocked (even though they didn't really show it much) that Mr. Big was so small.

"Nice to see you again, Wilde" Big said sarcastically.

"Good to be back. Now tell us why we're here" Nick said moving closer to Big and giving off a serious face and showing off his metallic bindings that kept his paws bound in front of him.

"You know all too well why you're here. During that little war of yours you destroyed my Five hundred thousand dollar car. I just happened to have had it tuned up before you destroyed it" Big said tapping his claws on the arm-rest of the chair he was in.

"When was the last time you had a reality check, you little shrew!? There were zombies surrounding your car and if I didn't do anything about it, you and your... bellhops here would be one of them by now!" Nick shouted slamming his paws onto the desk, which made Mr. Big snap his claws and Raymond pushed him back to where he was before.

"Do you know how long it took me to find a car so beautiful and the most amazing interior I've ever seen in my life?" Mr. Big said while Nick was getting up from where Raymond had forced him.

"You actually value a luxury car over your own life? You should be grateful Nick saved you, forget the car, think about your own life!" Judy said walking up to Big and giving him an angry look that showed she was not having it with the way she was treating her friend and faction leader. This only made Mr. Big chuckle.

"I never really understood you soldiers. You always have this big sense of duty, an oath to protect the innocent. Always focusing on the bigger things like life, but never the small things like luxurious things I can only afford" Big said after chuckling.

"Are you listening to yourself!? Are you saying you'd rather have died instead of having Nick save you!?" Clawhauser called out in outrage and confusion.

"If it meant I would have gone down with my beautiful car, than yes" Mr. Big said. Nick got back up and got even more angry, but tried his best to keep his cool.

"You'd better let us go, and just maybe I'll let you keep your head" Nick threatened with a hoarse growl in his throat. Mr. Big response was a mere chuckle before speaking again.

"Your petty threats humor me, Wilde" he said, passing off Nick's threat as if it were a joke.

"I'm being dead serious. Let us go, or else something really ugly is gonna happen" Nick said narrowing his eyes down at the shrew again.

"You not only have the nerve to threaten me, but just happen to allow yourselves to be captured on the day my daughter is to be married?" Mr. Big asked rhetorically as he began tapping his claws on the armrests again, and leaving tiny little markings.

"Who said we allowed ourselves to get captured? your lackeys tranquilized us!" Gazelle piped in.

"I've had enough of hearing your meaningless threats and trying to convince me that the car was nothing compared to me not becoming one of those walking corpses outside my doors. Ice them!" Mr. Big shouted. Raymond pushed the faction off the carpet and took it off to reveal it was a trap door with a whirlpool of ice water filling it up, with large ice chunks floating around in it.

"Wait! You're gonna just let us freeze to death!?" Clawhauser cried out in shock as he saw what was to become of them.

"That's about the gist of it. Throw them in, boys" Mr. Big said. Just as about Kevin and Raymond were about to be pushed in, a tiny female voice called out. It was a younger shrew but with black hair and wearing a beautiful white wedding dress.

"Daddy! The reception's about to begin" she said, walking up to Mr. Big.

"Just one minute, Fru Fru, daddy's handling something right now" Mr. Big said looking to his daughter and then back to Nick, Clawhauser, Judy, and Gazelle.

"Daddy! What did we say!? No icing anyone at my wedding!" Fru Fru scolded Mr. Big.

"I have to baby, Daddy has to. This is the same Fox who destroyed my car" Mr. Big said referring to Nick. Fru Fru then walked a little bit closer to the edge of the desk and looked to Nick.

"You're the one to save my Daddy during the war?" she asked. Nick only nodded and waited for a response, fearing Big poisoned her mind by saying terrible things about him and how he was no better than the zombies (which was so not true).

"Thank you for saving him. You truly are an angel. And thank you so much for your service during the war" Fru Fru said gently and kindly with a warm smile that would make anyone feel very happy and comfortable in their company.

"But baby, Daddy's car" Mr. Big said getting nervous, feeling his heart race in his chest.

"No buts, Daddy. This nice Fox saved you and you decide to ice him and his friends? If it weren't for him, you wouldn't be here, or attending my wedding. Life is a fragile thing, and it's better that you're alive instead of a zombie" said Fru Fru placing her paws on top of Mr. Big's. The older shrew only sighed and let out a smile.

"Perhaps you are right, maybe I overreacted" Mr. Big said before turning to Raymond and Kevin.

"Let them go boys, take the bindings off and give them their weapons back" Mr. Big ordered. The bears did as told and shut the trap door, taking the metal bindings off their paws. Kevin then tore open the plastic trash bag and all their weapons spilled out onto the floor. Nick had reclaimed his pistol and machete, Judy with hr double-barrel and tomahawks, Clawhauser with his golf clubs, and Gazelle with her bow and arrows.

"Thank you, Mr. Big. And congratulations on your daughter's wedding" Judy said as she put her gun back in the casing and the axes back in her belt. Fru Fru let out a girly giggle at Judy's statement.

"Thank you very much. Why not stay for the reception? We would be honored if you stayed for a while" Fru Fru offered.

"Nothing would make us happier" Clawhauser answered.

"Well then, now that all that's out of the way... let's start the reception, shall we?" Mr. Big said walking to the door holding Fru Fru's paw and walked her out the door, Kevin and Raymond walking by their sides. Nick and the rest of the faction then followed behind them.

"That was close. REALLY close" said Nick as he still felt his heart beat fast from the fear of that he was gonna die freezing to death.

"Tell me about it. I thought we were goners for sure. But at least we got invited to a wedding reception" Judy said.

"I wonder if the cake will be good" Clawhauser said. And with that statement, Nick and Judy smiled and rolled their eyes together. The time had now come for the reception to begin as they had entered a large Ball-room.

 **A/N: And there it is. Mr. Big and Fru Fru making an appearance in the story for the first time. Nick and the other faction members should consider themselves lucky because if Fru Fru hadn't showed up, they'd be dead, wishing it was the zombies that killed them instead of being frozen. The reception and what happens next will be in the next update. Please review, thanks.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: The faction was about to be killed by Mr. Big by him 'Icing' them, but his daughter Fru Fru stepped in and saved them, making her father realize that his life was more important than a fancy car. Now Nick, Judy, Clawhauser, and Gazelle have been released and invited to Fru Fru's wedding reception. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The room was beautifully decorated with several animals of different varieties at large tables that were also nicely decorated with some smaller animals also on top of the larger tables for the smaller animals. White was everywhere they looked.

"Take your seats. Couples dances will begin in a minute" Mr. Big said as he guided them to a table in the front right outside the dance floor. Nick sat next to Judy and Clawhauser sat next to Gazelle.

"I like weddings, so nice and everyone's happy and having fun" Judy said looking all around at the beautiful decorations in the room, there was even white roses in a vase in the center of each table.

"Never been to one before, you know, fighting the war and all" Nick said looking awkwardly around.

"Maybe that's why it's a good idea that an animal has a wedding after all this. It's like a sign of hope, showing that everything's gonna be alright and there can be a future even though everything's in ruins" Judy said looking at Nick and placed her paw on Nick's. The fox could only smile at Judy and sigh.

"You're right. Hope is hard to find these days, but it can come in packages big and small, like a wedding" Nick said scooting his chair closer to Judy's, not even moving his paw away from hers.

"Then enjoy this while it lasts. No zombies, no fighting, no fire and ashes everywhere you look. It's nice to know there's always a place to get away from from all that" Judy said with a small smile.

"Excuse me" Fru Fru's voice interjected into the conversation and caused Nick and Judy to look down to her.

"The first couples dance is about to begin soon. And if I may, you two make an adorable couple" the shrew said. The minute she said that, Nick and Judy began to blush and shake their heads.

"Oh no no no, we're not really a couple. We're just friends, we're partners fighting in the same group" Judy said.

"I'm the leader of a faction, she's a soldier" Nick said as well. Fru Fru just crossed her forearms and raised an eyebrow smiling. Little did they know that Fru Fru had an idea in her head and walked over to the DJ booth and whispered to the DJ who was a ferret.

"Sure, I can definitely do that" the DJ said before tapping on the microphone to get everyone in the room's attention.

"Attention every animal in the room. Eyes on me, thank you very much. As you all know, today is a very special day for Mr. Big's special little girl Fru Fru" the DJ said, which made everyone clap for a brief minute and allowing the DJ to speak into the microphone again.

"But before we start the couples dance, Fru Fru has asked me to do something. I'd like to have Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps on the dance floor by themselves please" that immediately made Nick and Judy feel their hearts skip a beat. Some spotlights on the roof shined their lights on them. They just sat there, trying to think of an excuse to make it so they couldn't get up and dance but the DJ began clapping and chanting 'Dance' over and over, with most of the other animal guests joining in. Clawhauser and Gazelle did the same along with the others as well.

"Alright alright, we'll dance for crying out loud" Nick called out.

"Just don't get overly excited, okay?" Judy added as both she and Nick walked to the center of the dance floor. As soon as the spotlights turned off when they were in the middle.

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

"Alright, let's get this party started!" I heard the DJ said. After the sound of a button being pushed was made, I heard a soft song play.

"Oh, I know this song! I used to love it!" Judy said cheering. The song was 'No One Ever Loved' by Lykke Li. I knew the song too when it came on the radio before the zombies showed up. I only held out my paw and Judy took it, we began slow dancing like they would do in the old days. What happened next was completely unexplainable, either my there was something wrong with my vision, or I saw Judy glow beautifully underneath the lights we were dancing under. I just kept on looking at her as we were dancing and gave her a twirl before pulling her back towards me.

"You're pretty good at that" she told me. That voice sounded nothing short of angelic, was I really denying I was in love with Judy? And did it really take some slow dancing to a Lykke Li song to make me finally realize it? If so, I don't know what I was denying, Judy Hopps was absolutely beautiful, I was in love with Judy Hopps. I began to sway my body a little more, in sync with her movements and placed my paw on her hip and I smiled.

"Wow, Nick I never knew what a great dancer you were" Judy said, I swear I saw her blush. She looked so adorable when she blushed. Normally I'd try denying that I liked her, but it's useless now, I'm in love and it feels good. But what if Judy feels the same way about me? I could only now wonder as we danced.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

I tried by best to hide my blush when I felt Nick put his paw on my hip as we were dancing. He was such an amazing dancer. All the nerves in my body felt like hot butter melting on pancakes, I felt so light all over my body and belt my heart get a warm feeling in the center. Was this what love was supposed to feel like? If it did, it felt so good I didn't care who else was watching, it felt like it was just us in the room and no other animal had their eyes on us. Nick Wilde had so many likable qualities about him, an animal who cared for the lives of others, a skilled warrior, his love for classic literature like 'Prrride and Prrrejudice', a veteran in the war against the dead, and his heart was in the right place.

"How'd you know how to dance that well?" I asked Nick after he had his forearms around my waist while my back was against his chest and twirled me around and set me back on my hind paws.

"My mom taught me. She always told me I was gonna find a good girlfriend someday because of how well I danced, how lovable I was, and how well my manners were" Nick told me.

"But you never got to because of the war?" I asked. Nick just had a sad look on his face and shook his head.

"No, because I was a fox" he said as he still had one paw on my waist and one holding my right paw.

"I don't understand, what did that have to do with it?" I asked confused.

"Everyone attacked me with all those offensive fox stereotypes. Nobody cared that I was different than other foxes, so was mother. All they did was just smash my dreams of helping others and broke my heart. My dreams, my hopes, everything I ever hoped for, they just stepped on like an ant on the blacktop" Nick told me with his voice shaking in between a mix of sadness and anger and a tear fell down his face. I just showed a comforting smile and took my left paw off his shoulder and wiped that tear away and placed it back where it was before.

"They didn't know the real you, that's what the real problem was. They didn't know how brave, heroic, nice, and amazing you are. All those things... well... they're something I love you for" I said, this time I wasn't gonna deny that I loved him. Foxes and bunnies may have been natural enemies but in this time, when a horde of undead cannibalistic zombies tore the population to shreds, and a war nearly made the city crumble to ruins... when did the natural order of things ever matter to anyone anymore?

"Thank you Judy, wait... did you just say you love me?" Nick asked me. I just nodded and kept on dancing with him. I swear I felt his paw move upwards from my hip and up my back until I felt it touch my face, the most gentle touch I could ever feel in my entire bunny life.

"I do love you. You're a great warrior, not to mention you taught me how to survive and how to fight. I learned all that from watching you, I don't think I could ever learn that by myself" I told him, not wanting to let his gentle touch leave my face, I felt so happy whenever he held onto me.

"You're an amazing fighter yourself. But what about the Burrows? That was your home, why would you wanna leave home to unexpectedly fight zombies?" Nick asked me.

"I wanted to be a police officer. All I ever wanted was to help others. Arresting crime lords and drug dealers are one thing, but taking out zombies are totally something else. And somehow, it turned out to be so much more than I imagined..." I cut myself off before pulling Nick closer to me gently and my lips nearly made contact with his ear and continued my sentence in a whisper.

"... Because I got to know you" was all I whispered before I moved away from his ear and pressed my lips against his, keeping my eyes open to see he was closing his. I closed my eyes after he did and our forearms were around one another and we stopped dancing. Clapping filled my ears, remembering we were being watched by the other animals attending this party and we broke the kiss apart three minutes later.

"Thank you for the lovely dance, Mr. Wilde" I said walking back to the table smiling.

"You're welcome" I heard him say.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Clawhauser and Gazelle, who were watching Judy and Nick dance didn't even notice her left front hoof was on top of his right paw. She looked down and began blushing before looking at Clawhauser who had a smile on his face.

"Oh, sorry" she said.

"It's alright" Clawhauser said as he felt Gazelle remove her hoof from his paw. The clapping had died the minute Judy and Nick had returned to their seats right next to them. Fru Fru had approached Nick and was now tapping her hind paw with one eyebrow raised.

"Alright, you got us. We're together" Nick said to Fru Fru as he was now holding one of Judy's paws in his own and giving her a gentle look.

"Like I said, you two are so adorable" Fru Fru said before walking over to her groom. Little did Nick and Judy know, there was a tiger zombie approaching them from behind, blood dripping from a large cut across the face, both eyes bloodshot, not a single trace of white in them, and some pus hanging from the left side of the bottom lip. One of the guests, a giraffe saw the zombie and screamed, pointing at it to get their attention. Nick and Judy broke their loving gaze to hear the screaming and turn to see the zombie standing above them.

"Judy! The cloth!" Nick ordered.

"Got it!" Judy said. Both animals jumped from their seats and pulled a tablecloth off one of the tables right behind theirs and jumped up onto the zombie's shoulders, wrapping around their head to blind them. The zombie now could only make muffled groans and moans underneath and struggle to get Nick and Judy off of them. Gazelle got up from her seat and prepared an arrow, once ready, it penetrated the zombie's forehead and blood had now soaked the pristine white table cloth. Both Nick and Judy jumped off the shoulders and back onto the floor, the zombie's head falling backwards onto the floor.

"There's another one!" Judy heard one of the guests say. She whipped her head to the side to see a boar zombie with hardly any skin left on it's head and dried blood surrounding it.

"There are more over there!" Nick said looking over to see several other zombies busting down the left doors to the ball room.

"Alright guys. Arm up, we got a job to do" Nick ordered taking his machete out, Judy did the same with her tomahawks and Clawhauser had pulled out two golf clubs.

"We can figure out how they got in here later. For now let's just focus on killing them" Judy said as she took a defensive position with her weapons tightly kept in her paws.

"Roger that. I just hope there aren't too many of them" Nick agreed before they all began to fight and kill the intruding zombies.

 **A/N: I will say that it must suck to have a romantic moment, realizing you're in love with your partner in combat and admitting your love to them, before zombies barge in and ruin everything. But, yeah Nick and Judy are now a couple, and they will have much more moments and battles together to come. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Weddings, everyone loves them. It's all fun, dancing, cake... that is until the zombies show up and try to eat every last guest alive, making meals out of their flesh and brains. And that's what happened when Judy and Nick realized they were both in love with each other, and now comes a fight against a couple dozen zombies that got let into the sanctuary. So let the action begin. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The minute the zombies had come in, Mr. Big had ordered everyone to evacuate the building. He couldn't deny now that the sanctuary was compromise and they would need to relocate somewhere else in Zombietopia. Most of the zombies tried to go for the exits and try to attack the guests, but the only thing they got was an arrow right through their heads, courtesy of Gazelle and her bow.

"I don't understand! How can there be zombies in here!?" Gazelle asked as she fired another arrow. Judy jumped off a table and onto a giraffe zombie's shoulders and sliced through it's neck using her tomahawks to sever the head from the rest of the body.

"I know. This is supposed to be a sanctuary!" Judy exclaimed back in response as she did a somersault on the floor and cut through two German Sheppard dog zombies hind legs and then toss the axes into their heads. Nick had ran up to the zombies that Judy had just killed and pulled the axes out, handing them back to her.

"There are too many of them. I just saw a couple hundred trying to raid the rooms upstairs" Nick said as he handed the weapons back to Judy, who placed them back on her belt.

"We're not gonna be able to kill all of them. We're gonna have to make a run for it the minute we find an opening" Judy nodded in agreement after Nick had reported on the other zombies that had invaded the mansion

"This is the reason I say we need a fifth faction member" Nick said as he pulled his pistol out and shot at a lion zombie. The bullet had hit it's head and it landed backwards on the dance floor.

"A fifth member would be nice, I will say that" Gazelle said as she fired five arrows at once that were a few inches apart from another and pierced the zombies' bodies in various areas, only two got the arrows to the head, while the others got it in the neck, arm, and knee.

"I gotcha, don't worry" Clawhauser said swinging his golf clubs around to take off two zombie heads and noticed on one of the tables was a giant ice sculpture that looked really expensive. The cheetah then got an idea and swung both clubs at one of the table's legs and the bottom left area of the table fell, which made the ice sculpture come down towards the zombie.

"Timber!" Clawhauser shouted before the sculpture crushed the zombie's body underneath it's massive frozen weight.

"Nice one" Gazelle said as she shot an arrow behind her and took off a zombie's head, pinning it against the wooden wall, with the body falling forwards onto a table and taking down the right half of the table.

"Thank you" Clawhauser said as he ran over towards a grizzly bear zombie, using his clubs to trip him and knock the head off using one of his clubs.

"Where's a mobile assault vehicle when you need one!?" Judy asked as she cut off a zombie's arm and the upper half of it's head, making it slide off and land in the punch bowl, causing the pink fluid to turn a dark shade of crimson.

"I know, we used to have those a lot back during the war whenever we were outnumbered. It sucks we don't have them now" Nick said as he shot a zombie in the center of it's forehead, as well as a zombie right behind it.

"Hey Nick, you may be right about this. I don't know how long it is before I run out of arrows" Gazelle said as she was now down to ten arrows and used two of them to take out two zombies coming in on her right and left.

"I'm running low on ammo too" Nick said responding as he unloaded his clip and put in a new one he kept on his belt that had a few more rounds of bullets in them. Just as Judy was about to strike another zombie with her tomahawk, the faint sound of bullets being fired from upstairs was heard before something had barged out from the ceiling and swung from some tubes and wires to one of the exits.

"What the heck was that!?" Clawhauser asked, getting up from the floor, his clothes covered in rubble since he almost got hit by whatever fell through. Nick got a good look at it to see it was a large tank with one right next to it.

"That's a gas tank!" Nick shouted.

"I heard someone fire bullets upstairs. Probably at the floor to make that thing fall. And I know for a fact that zombies don't fire guns" Judy said as she had decapitated a monkey zombie.

"Wanna bet a hundred bucks that traitor did all this?" Gazelle asked.

"You'd probably win that bet. I don't know any other animal who'd wanna do anything like this BUT the traitor" Nick said as he kicked a zombie in it's leg, dislocating it and then slicing through it's head with the machete he carried.

"Should we send someone up there and catch them?" Judy asked.

"No, they probably got away by now. Jumped out the window or something" Nick said as he pointed his pistol to the side and shoot a zombie in the eye, taking it down and making it land on the carpet. Judy then looked over to the gas tank that had almost crushed all of them and got an idea.

"Run to the exit! I got an idea!" Judy shouted, running towards the door where the gas tank was. Nick, Gazelle, and Clawhauser had followed her only for her to point to the exit door right beside the tank itself.

"Get out, now. I'll be right behind you and I won't be far behind. I'm gonna fire a bullet into that tank and blow this place up. The explosion will be enough to scorch every last zombie we didn't take out back in the ball room" Judy said as he took her sawed-off double-barrel out it's case and loaded a few rounds into it before it was ready to shoot.

"I hope you're right about that" Nick said as he now ran out the door with Clawhauser and Gazelle following him. Just as they were two feet away from the door, Judy looked up to see several zombies running down the stairs and tried to attack her, but she ran out the door and was only a foot away from the door as she pointed the gun at the tank.

"Who wants some fried zombies for dinner?" Judy asked the zombies before pulling the trigger and the bullets had hit the tank and the whole mansion exploded, just as she predicted. The force of the explosion forced her to fall to the stone path that lead to the front door.

"Judy!" Nick shouted as he ran towards her and helped her up off the icy cold ground.

"Thanks" Judy said as she got up and dusted herself off of the snow, looking back to the destroyed establishment.

"Well, your plan worked. Nice thinking, as always" Nick said patting Judy on the shoulder. Mr. Big had approached the fox and bunny to speak.

"Good news, everyone got out alright. And all the zombies in that house are nothing but crisp bodies lying around in ashes. You really are great warriors, we may have a chance to take back the city after all" Mr. Big said smiling.

"You're welcome. And we're gonna do whatever it takes to make sure that happens" Judy said. Nick was about to speak but had noticed something standing by the burning building under a tree covered in snow. It was an animal in a black cloak, the same one that blew up that van at the gas station.

"Hey!" Nick called out, causing Judy to look behind her to see the the cloaked animal, without a doubt it was the traitor. Whoever was underneath that hood ran away into the woods behind them.

"Clawhauser, Gazelle, stay with the others. Judy, come with me" Nick ordered getting his gun ready, and Judy with hers too. The traitor had gotten so far as a small clearing of dirt with small frozen puddles surrounding it, but was stopped when something had been thrown from the air and stuck out of the ground by where the traitor's hind paws, or hooves would be. It was a Kukri knife, and how fast it was thrown was enough to make the traitor stop running and Nick and Judy stood where they were in between two large rocks that stood between them and the clearing.

"Who threw that?" Nick and Judy asked in unison before looking up to see the silhouette of an otter standing on the top of a tree and then it jumped down, landing on their feet without injuring themselves and walking towards the traitor.

"Should we do something?" Judy asked.

"No, just leave them be. I wanna see what happens" Nick whispered back in response. The otter revealed themselves from the shadows to reveal it was a female slender North American River Otter wearing a gray wool cardigan with black zigzags on the bottom and it was halfway buttoned up with some dried blood splatters on the left shoulder, she also had black tight pants with two black nine-millimeter pistols encased in the pockets, fur was light brown like creamed coffee. Her green eyes were narrowed down to a dangerous look of anger as she pulled the knife out from the ground and took a defensive position.

"Alright, enough with all your 'Quiet Game' charade and start talking! Tell me where he is, and I promise I'll grant you a quick and painless death" she said. The traitor didn't answer and just stood where they were.

"That little silent treatment of yours is starting to get on my nerves. You released the zombies from quarantine, caused the war, and now kidnapping someone who's more important to me than any other animal in this wasteland of a city!? We can do this the easy way or the hard way, it's your choice" the otter shouted in an angry tone circling the traitor slowly, still holding her defensive position with her knives in her paws. The traitor revealed their hands to show they were wearing black leather gloves that looked like the kind a hoofed animal would wear and they had police batons in each.

"Guess it's gonna be the hard way, huh?" the otter asked. The traitor then charged at her trying to hit her in the head from the side, but the otter was quick enough to raise one of her knives to block the attack and swing the other one at the traitor's head, but they ducked and did a back-flip, attempting to use their hind-hooves to kick her in the face but she moved to the side and avoided the kick.

"Hard way it is" the otter said as the the traitor ran up towards the otter and tried to attack more times from different angles and positions but the otter blocked off all of them, creating sparks as the metals of the batons and the knives met when they rubbed against each other and left some spark damage on the dirt, letting out battle cries with attack she gave and blocked.

"She's good" Judy whispered as she watched the otter fight.

"Agreed" Nick whispered back. The otter then put a lot of force into her neck attack that she had cut right through the traitor's first baton and knocked what remained of it out of their hoof. Both hooves were on the other baton like a baseball bat before the otter swiped her hind paw from underneath and tried to unbalance the traitor's stance. The traitor had dodged it but they almost fell forward and the otter had used another kick to disarm them of the other baton and swiped the blade against their back, cutting through the cloak and their back, letting out some blood onto the dirt.

"Not so tough without your little toys, aren't you?" The otter asked as she put one knife away in it's casing hidden behind her cardigan on the midsection of her back, leaving only one pointed towards the traitor.

"Just tell me where he is! I'm tired of having to chase you all over the place without a minute of sleep!" the otter demanded. Nick had just noticed something as the otter had the traitor cornered, they were pulling a grenade out their cloak and had popped the pin out using their tiny thumbs close to the hoof itself.

"Grenade!" Nick called out. The otter looked behind her to see Nick pointing to the traitor.

"They've just unpinned a grenade!" Nick shouted, making the otter look back down to see that the traitor had thrown the grenade at her but she used her hind paw to kick it into the air. Nick had taken this as an opportunity to shoot at the grenade, so he did, causing it to explode in midair. The minute the grenade was destroyed, the otter had looked back down to see the traitor had gotten away.

"I'm not done with you. Not by a long-shot" the otter snarled as she looked up to the woods where hoof-prints had lead to a much darker area that looked very dangerous.

 **A/N: And there's the chapter. So much action in one chapter I couldn't help myself. The traitor has made another appearance, revealing they were the ones who breached the sanctuary's defenses and let the zombies in and a mysterious female otter also has a bone to pick with the traitor like Nick does. Could she be the next faction member that Nick, Judy, Gazelle, and Clawhauser need? Find out in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Last update was a complete action overload and it was awesome! The zombies have been blown to bits, thanks to Judy coming up with a genius plan. Nick and Judy also got to witness something they never expected to, the traitor ran away but got challenged in combat by an otter wielding kukri knives and almost being beaten until Nick warned her the traitor had a grenade and helped destroy it. This is where we left off, enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The otter then turned back to Nick and Judy as they walked over towards her.

"Thanks for spotting that grenade. If you hadn't pointed that out I'd be a goner" the otter said as she put her other knife away with the first one in it's case.

"No problem. Only downside is that was the traitor's distraction to get away" Nick said pointing to the hoof-prints that the traitor had left in the dirt.

"I know, you have no idea how long I've been chasing them across the city" the otter said, clenching her paws into fists of anger and they were shaking too.

"You've seen them before? Do you know who they are?" Judy asked.

"No, they've always had that cloak with that hood over their head every time we crossed paths" the otter said as she took out one of her knives that had fresh blood from the cut they inflicted on the traitor, staining the metal. She then pulled out a small rag and used it to wipe the blood off, being careful not to cut herself.

"I owe you for saving me. May I have your names?" the otter asked when she put the knife and the rag away. Judy stepped forth and spoke.

"I'm Judy Hopps, this is Nick Wilde. He's the leader of the faction I'm in to take back the city from the zombies" Judy said. The otter's eyes went wide and looked to Nick.

"You're Nick Wilde!? The same one who fought in the war!?" the otter asked in bewilderment.

"The one and only" Nick said smiling and shrugging his shoulders with his paws in his jacket pockets. The otter got down on one knee and knelt before the fox.

"My name is Otterton, but you can call me Mrs. Otterton. I fought in the war too. My husband and I heard a lot of war stories about you, you claimed the most territory from the zombies even though we were losing" she said introducing herself and getting back up.

"Nice to meet a fellow soldier" Nick said extending his paw to Mrs. Otterton and she shook it willingly with a smile. Judy then spoke up to her.

"When you were fighting the traitor, you were asking where someone was. Who were you looking for?" the bunny asked. Mrs. Otterton's smile was replaced with a sad look and she looked down to the dirt, holding one paw in the other.

"My husband. We fought together during the war. We met when we were put through combat and weapons training when the war was beginning. We were married during the second year and we always stuck together as a team, we were unstoppable. He often told me how he dreamed of meeting the legendary soldier Nick Wilde and fight right beside him, he was my husband's hero" Mrs. Otterton explained, leaving Nick flattered that he was someone's source of inspiration to become a great warrior and one day fight by their side in the hopes of winning the war.

"What happened to him?" Nick asked.

"The traitor... a day before the evacuations we were sent on a mission to gather any surviving uninfected animals and put them on the trains. The minute some zombies showed up, the crowd went into panic and I saw that same cloaked animal fighting my husband before they used a taser on them and dragged him away. I tried going after him, but I lost him a crowd of zombies and survivors. When the final trains were being boarded, I made the choice to stay in the city and look for my husband, I swore I wouldn't leave without him" Mrs. Otterton said with her voice growing slightly angry and her entire body shaking.

"It was brave of you to choose to stay. A commitment like that isn't so easily broken" Nick said approaching Nick and placing his paws on her shoulders to calm her down.

"He's the center of my life, Mr. Wilde. I know that traitor is keeping him somewhere, probably doing who knows what to him. My poor husband is locked away and alone somewhere, begging to be saved" Mrs. Otterton said with some tears falling down her eyes. Nick's only response was to wipe the tears away and speak.

"We will find him, I promise. And I can promise that if you join our faction, one of our top priorities will be to find your husband before we take this city back" Nick said in a comforting tone that made Mrs. Otterton smile and the tears that glistened in her eyes start to fade.

"I am at your service, Nick" Mrs. Otterton said saluting Nick.

"Alright, let's get back to Gazelle and Clawhauser. We gotta see if there's someplace else Mr. Big can take the refugees" Nick ordered walking back the way they came, with Mrs. Otterton and Judy following him.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

Looks like we finally got a fifth faction member, like Nick talked about. And she fought in the war like he did, so they can relate to each other due to their experiences they've had fighting. My heart warm again when I saw Nick promise to Mrs. Otterton we'd help her get her husband back from the traitor, because that's the kind of hero this broken city needs, one who puts the priorities of other animals before their own priorities.

"Guys!" Clawhauser called out running towards us.

"Mr. Big says he's evacuating everyone to a secret bomb shelter he owns. It's three blocks away from here and it goes at least a few feet underground, just as big as the house" Gazelle told us. This was good news that they had a backup plan even though their previous sanctuary had it's defensed breached and blown up, actually that last one was my fault, but I did what I had to to make sure no zombie got out just so it could infect any of the other refugees.

"Who's this?" asked Clawhauser pointing to Mrs. Otterton.

"Mrs. Otterton, I was one of the soldiers in the war like Nick. The traitor took my husband captive and I gotta find him before something happens, that's why I've recently been appointed as one of your faction members by Nick" Mrs. Otterton explained. Mr. Big had walked up to us and spoke with a worried tone.

"I presume your friends told you about the bomb shelter. There's bad news though I'm afraid, even though it's big enough to contain every last refugee, there isn't enough food, water, even essentials to keep them alive. We will need to relocate somewhere else" said Mr. Big, the bad news was a little hard to take, but I did have one idea.

"I know a place where you can take the refugees. We left there just yesterday in an armored car we got from that place" Mr. Big then looked up to me and spoke.

"Where is this place?" he asked. Before I could speak, there was something I've been meaning to do all this time, but never got around to doing because of the zombies, and we got taken here.

"Alright, I'll cut you deal. I'll give you the coordinates to this other sanctuary, only if you tell me where the remaining members of Zootopia's embassy are hiding. We need them to regroup to plan an attack on the zombies and take back both the city and the Burrows" I told him. Mr. Big had sighed and spoke, rubbing his temple with one of his paws.

"The only remaining embassy member is dead. Fell down a cliff to his death, broke several bones in the process, his neck included" he told me. I knew it was too good to be true, without no embassy, there could be no plan to help take out every last zombie populating the streets.

"But, there is an organization hidden in the rain forest district. A new embassy, if you will... Mayor Lionheart went into hiding after the war was lost and formed a new embassy ZPD Chief Bogo, his assistant Mayor, Dawn Bellwether, and a few others. They built themselves a bunker in the woods, heavily guarded, I can give you the coordinates for the bunker if you give me the coordinates for this neighboring sanctuary" Mr. Big explained. I felt excitement and hope fill my nerves, there was a new embassy that was formed after the war ended? Maybe there's still a chance to save the city after all.

"Deal, I'll give them to you first thing in the morning. But for now, we need to reload and rest up" I told him.

"You got yourself a deal, Ms. Hopps. Follow me to the shelter, it's not too far from here" Mr. Big said as he began walking towards the other refugees and assembled them. We all followed them and walked in that crowd until we came across a large metal shed.

"This is only the entrance. Once you get inside, feel free to claim your rooms" Mr. Big said as he had Raymond open the door and guided them down the stairs which lead to a giant underground safe-house that looked like a prison, but the walls were painted a nice shade of green and the doors were made of mahogany. There were probably eleven floors right below us and there were ten doors against each wall.

"Nice" I heard Nick and Clawhauser whisper together.

"I like to come prepared for whatever comes our way. Zombie apocalypse is definitely no exception. Get some rest, and goodnight" Mr. Big said before departing to a different room.

"Claim your rooms everyone. Tomorrow we leave for the rain forest district so Judy can plead her case to the new embassy" Nick had told us, I saw Mrs. Otterton claim the first room on the left side of this floor and Clawhauser bunked with Gazelle a few rooms away from her. I had just decided to follow him to whichever room he was gonna decide to sleep in. I followed him down to the third floor below the one we entered the shelter through and it was a very beautiful room, nice tan carpet with a dark green blanket covered queen-sized bed.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Judy had noticed sitting on a mahogany desk was a military radio with a headset with a microphone attached to it. When he had noticed Nick go into the bathroom to wash up, she had walked over to the desk and took her seat on the wooden chair. Once Judy had placed on the headset and placed the microphone right by her lips, she began turning the dials on the radio and pressing the buttons.

"Hello? Does anyone copy, this is Judy Hopps. I need to speak with Bonnie and Stu Hopps, they're my parents" Judy spoke into the microphone. She knew that every house in the Burrows had a military radio in case of emergencies and needed to call anyone for help.

"Judy? Judy is that you?" asked a voice she recognized as her father, which made her smile.

"Yes it's me. I have some good news for you" Judy had told her father.

"Well, I'm all ears" Stu had said, a tone that said he was excited and happy to hear his daughter was alive and had good news to share with him.

"The city's nearly in ruins. There was a virus outbreak, and then there was a war that the living lost against the dead. But I've joined this faction, their leader is a fox named Nick Wilde and we've recently discovered a new embassy, we can plead our case to them and tell them to send some kind of help" Judy said happily.

"A fox!? Judy, what have I told you? Foxes are nothing but sly little trickster thieves! They're from the devil!" Stu exclaimed in outrage, Judy was disgusted at what Stu thought about Nick.

"He's not just some Fox, dad. Nick's a hero, he fought the war and was considered a savior to a lot of survivors. I'm in love with him!" Judy shouted back

"Judy, all that time around him must have screwed up your way of thinking. Just come home, we can work out a way of living and take these zombies out. Forget about him and come home" Stu said. Judy only sighed and her face turned into one of anger.

"No, dad. I have a job to do. I swore I'd get you help and get rid of all these zombies and that's what I'm gonna do. And I don't care what you think about Nick, those are just stereotypes about foxes. I love him, he's brave, he's kind, he taught me about survival. And in this world we're living now, I don't think natural enemies falling in love is the most of our problems" Judy said with a bitter tone. She hated how her father spoke poorly about Nick because he was a fox when she saw him for what he truly was.

"Judy, listen to yourself... you're not..." Stu was about to go on, but Judy cut him off.

"I have to go, dad. I have to meet with the new embassy tomorrow" Judy said turning the radio off and throwing the headset back onto the desk. The sound of a door creaking caught her ear, she she turned around to see Nick wearing only black sweat pants and the upper half of his body exposed. Even underneath his red fur, Judy could see scars from several knife cuts, bullet woulds, even scratches.

"I heard everything, I'm sorry about your dad" Nick said as he sat down on the bed.

"Don't be. He's just too old fashioned. But when this is all over, we can show them all it's okay to love whoever you want, no matter what any other animal thinks" Judy said placing her paw on Nick's knee and then looking up to look at Nick's scars up close.

"How'd you get all those?" she asked. Nick had chuckled and placed his paw on her cheek.

"Sometimes the only souvenirs you can get from fighting in a war is all the scars from every single battle you've ever fought" he said pacing his other paw on his collarbone and move it downwards towards his stomach where there were a few cut and bullet scars.

"Do they still hurt?" Judy asked, taking Nick's paw off her cheek and took her shotgun and it's casing off her back, placing it by the desk.

"Sometimes" Nick answered as he watched Judy unzip her jacket to reveal her shirt and then kissed him gently.

"I love you, so much" Judy whispered in between kissing Nick and rubbing his scars gently as if they were fresh and needed tender care and healing.

"I feel the same. I don't care what any animal says, I love you. I'm in love with that brave little bunny I met on the train and lead her on to become a great warrior" Nick whispered into Judy's ear and kissed her back gently. Both fox and bunny lying down on the bed, getting comfortable, Judy lying down on her stomach against Nick's chest and kissing him on his cheeks, neck, and lips. They expressed their love for one another under the dimly-lit lantern above their head until they both fell asleep in one another's embrace.

 **A/N: I decided to end this chapter with some romance between Nick and Judy, because despite the fact that there's a lot of zombies and fighting, talk of death and war it's also a love story between two warriors struggling for survival in the zombie apocalypse. But also, the revelation of a new embassy was made to the faction and Mrs. Otterton has joined too, now their journey to take the city back continues. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Mrs. Otterton has become the fifth member of the faction, and they have learned of the mysterious 'New Embassy' formed by Mayor Lionheart after the war. Judy was able to make contact with her father and explain everything that happened only for Stu to say nasty fox stereotypes about Nick, doubting his status as a warrior and Judy's lover. But Nick and Judy find comfort in each other and cuddle with one another for the night (something those of you who ship Nick and Judy together would make you melt with feels). Now the quest to find the new embassy begins. Enjoy!**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

Knocking on the door snapped me out of my sleep. My eyes opened to show me Judy snuggled up against my side, she was smiling in her sleep and she had her jacket off, probably on the floor, showing off her shirt with some dried zombie blood splatters on it. And her head was leaning against my chest where my heart would be, she was breathing lightly in her sleep listening to my heartbeat. The knocking got slightly louder this time and I looked to the door.

"Who is it?" I called out gently, not wanting to wake Judy up. She was a tough fighter, she deserved some rest for once.

"It's Mrs. Otterton! Mr. Big wants to see us outside the shelter in an house. But he says we can load up in the armory before we do" she told me.

"We'll be out in a few. Just give us some time" I called back before looking down at Judy who was still sleeping, even with our voices filling the air. I decided to wake her up by gently running paw paw from her neck down to her back gently. She started to giggle in her sleep and she opened her eyes halfway to look back up at me.

"Good morning, cutie" Judy whispered as she placed one paw on my chest where two cut scars I gained during the war were placed, just right below my collarbone, it felt nice when she touched them, it was like the stinging that normally happened whenever my scars got touched wasn't even there and only Judy's gentle and somewhat tickling touch was all I felt.

"Good morning to you too, whiskers" I said with a gentle purr in my voice. After that little greeting, we both got up and went to the bathroom at the same time to brush our teeth together. It felt very nice, like we were a couple living together in a house and there weren't any zombies outside our door. As soon as the morning hygiene matters were over with, Judy put her jacket on and the shotgun back on her back, while I removed my pants and put my clothes from yesterday back on, putting all the weapons back in their proper casings.

"Ready?" Judy asked me. I just nodded right after I put in my second clip filled with bullets in my pistol and walked in front of her to open the door. Mrs. Otterton, Clawhauser, and Gazelle were all waiting for us.

"Morning, Nick. I saved you a muffin, and one for Judy too" Gazelle said handing over two muffins. I have the blueberry one to Judy while I helped myself to the banana muffin.

"Alright, let's load up at the armory and then we can exchange the information with Mr. Big after that" I ordered and walked over to a small closet with a metal door and saw a lot of clips, guns, swords, all kinds of weapons I couldn't even name. I took about twelve clips and put them in my belt for my pistol and grabbed about fifteen boxes of bullets meant for Judy's double-barrel.

"Here, they were on the shelf right where all the clips were kept" I said handing her the boxes, she took them blushing and began loading them into her belt right around where her tomahawks hung. After we just got out, Gazelle, Clawhauser, and Mrs. Otterton came in, taking the exact same amount of time we took to get armed up.

"I've got enough arrows to last me at least three weeks" Gazelle said holding up about a hundred arrows in her pouch where her arrows were kept. Clawhauser got five large belts that looked like they fit into a Gatling gun, I remembered that in the back of the car we got from Yax was a Gatling he got as a gift. We still had to go back and get the car, or else we'd be going nowhere in this forsaken wasteland.

"Everyone armed?" I asked. They all just nodded as Mrs. Otterton exited the armory with clips for her pistols. Now that everyone was armed we walked up the stairs to the outside of the shelter. Mr. Big, Raymond, and Kevin were waiting for us.

"Alright, Kevin has a map of the whole city with a red line drawn on it. That line will lead you to exactly where the new embassy is. Raymond has a blank map I want you to draw a line on that leads to this other sanctuary" Mr. Big told us before snapping his claws and signaled Raymond to give me the map. Once I had the map and a red marker in my paws, I saw a red dot that showed where we were and I traced the marker's tip down to where the Mystic Springs Oasis was and handed it back to Mr. Big.

"Thank you. Give them the map, Kevin" Mr. Big ordered and handed the map to Judy, who was right next to me.

"I wish you all the best of luck. The sooner that traitor is caught and a counterattack against the zombies is fully planned out and executed, the better" he told us.

"We won't let you down" I said before signaling the others to follow me. The house we stayed at before wasn't too far, so we walked down the icy street to get to the mansion.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Once they had gotten to the mansion, Judy and Nick took the front seats while Mrs. Otterton took the back with Gazelle and Clawhauser.

"You up to navigate?" asked Nick handing Judy the map.

"No problem. I got this" Judy said taking the map and opened it up. The keys were still in the ignition and Nick turned it.

"It'll take at least a few hours before we can get there. Probably sundown by the time we drive up to the compound" Judy said as she analyzed the map.

"We still have enough gas to make it there. We can refuel by the time we get there too, probably got enough gas fueling the generators that maybe they can spare some for our tank" Nick said as the car began moving and driving down the road, running over a few zombies that were frozen on the road and breaking them into shards.

"Don't forget, the traitor is our number one priority, we find them, make them take us to Mrs. Otterton's husband, and then we make them answer for their crimes" Nick said, reminding to Mrs. Otterton he was keeping his promise to help her find her captive love, which made her smile knowing Nick was serious about doing his job and keeping his promises.

Many hours have passed since they first left the house, the gas tank was now close to empty and they were almost at the very end of the rain forest district. Clawhauser, Gazelle, and Mrs. Otterton were now asleep in the back, while Nick and Judy struggled to stay awake.

"How much longer?" Nick asked in between a massive yawn and rubbing his tired eyes. Judy was about to speak until she saw a giant metallic three story building that looked similar to what an observatory would look like, with a large brick wall surrounding it, probably about five feet high.

"Guys! Wake up! We're here!" Judy shouted, waking the backseat passengers awake. Nick drove up closer to where a metal gate was as well as a booth with a wolf security guard was.

"Look alive soldiers. We're about to be in the presence of the new embassy" Nick said calmly and tapping his claws on the steering wheel, watching as the wolf got out the booth and towards the driver's seat window.

"Name?" he asked.

"Nick Wilde, Mr. Big sent us" Nick told him.

"Right, we were told you were coming. I'll open the door for you and you can just leave the car in front and I'll get someone to refuel and tune it up for you" the wolf said before Nick gave him a smile and a 'Thank You'. The door was now opened and Nick drove forth up to the front doors which looked like double doors only they were made from grenade and gun resistant metal, only very wealthy animals of high power could afford vehicles and house improvements like that.

"Yep, this is definitely the place" Judy said as she put the map in the glove box. Nick got out the car with the others following, rain began pouring on them and getting their clothes slightly wet. Nick walked to the doors and opened one of them, letting his fellow soldiers go in first while he followed behind. The minute the got inside, they were greeted by a noble looking African lion, a tiny stressed out looking sheep, and a large cape water buffalo wearing a police uniform.

"Nick Wilde?" the lion asked.

"Yes sir, these are my faction members. We've fought and worked so hard just to get here" Nick told him. The lion held his paw out to the fox to shake.

"Mayor Leodore Lionheart. I've heard a lot about you ever since the new embassy went into hiding here" Lionheart said while Nick took the paw and shook it back gently.

"It truly is an honor to be in your presence, sir. Chief Bogo of the ZPD at your service" the buffalo said saluting Nick.

"Assistant Mayor Dawn Bellwether, it's nice to meet such a heroic and brave animal who fought in the war" the sheep said tilting her head forward a little.

"It's an honor to meet all of you too. This is my second in command, Judy Hopps, a brave and clever bunny who saved our butts on multiple occasions. She came to the city wanting to join the ZPD but the zombies had other plans" Nick said introducing Judy first. Bogo saluted Judy and she returned the salute back.

"After all Mr. Big told us, and fighting alongside a veteran in the war against the zombies, you're on the right track to being one of ZPD's greatest" Bogo said. Judy smiled and felt happy inside, the one thing she always wanted was just ahead when they took the city back.

"Thank you, sir" said Judy.

"No, thank you" Bogo said dropping his salute.

"This is Benjamin Clawhauser, former ZPD officer who was outside the city when the war happened, but came back to help us fight, great with a gun and golf clubs. Pop singer Gazelle, great with a bow and arrow, and Mrs. Otterton, stayed in the city to find her husband when whoever let the zombies out kidnapped him" Nick explained about each warrior in the faction.

"An honor to meet you all. Mr. Big said you wanted to help us plan a counterattack against the zombies" Lionheart said.

"Our resources has been disappearing and have been growing thin, probably because of the traitor. But now that we have a war veteran in our presence, we might have a good chance at taking the city back" Bogo piped in after Lionheart spoke.

"We have more than just that reason to be here. Judy has a case she'd like to plead to you" Nick said looking to Judy and nudging her forward softly. After a deep breath, Judy cleared her throat and spoke.

"The zombies have invaded the Burrows. The day I was about to leave for the city, my hometown was invaded by undead animals that were disfigured in some way, they were zombies" Judy had said. Lionheart, Bellwether, and Bogo had looks of shock and horror on their faces, exchanging them with one another.

"The Burrows is one of the areas outside the city. Half of the uninfected population was evacuated to areas outside of the city, yet somehow zombies showed up and started attacking innocent bunnies" Judy continued.

"I don't understand, how could this have happened?" Lionheart asked.

"I think I might have a pretty good idea" Bogo piped in, all eyes looked to him.

"What day did you leave for the city?" Bogo asked Judy.

"I left the twelfth of this month, and today's the fourteenth" Judy answered.

"In the back of the building, we have several aircraft parked. Mostly helicopters. And we also have large metal storage containers that used to be used for shipping, but now we just use them for storing food. On the twelfth, one of the helicopters was missing from the back, the guards were passed out where they stood and heavily sedated with large amounts of morphine. There was a pile of food on the ground, the crate that kept them locked up was missing, we can only assume it was the traitor who did this, using the crate to store massive amounts of zombies and use the helicopter to carry it onto either the train tracks or the shore of the Burrows" Bogo explained funny.

"An airlift, of course!" Judy shouted in anger.

"We never knew what they did with that helicopter and crate until now. The next day we found both items back where they were" Bellwether piped in.

"It looks like we're gonna have to catch the traitor first before we can focus on a counterattack" Nick said.

"Agreed. Meet us at the briefing room on the third floor in an hour, until then... fell free to look around and eat something, you've earned it" Lionheart said before leaving the room with Bellwether and Bogo. Judy knew that now was the time to get even more serious than before, until the traitor was caught, Zombietopia would be Zootopia again for good.

 **A/N: some shocking revelations were made in this chapter. Bogo also mentioned that Judy is worthy of being a ZPD officer, even though in the movie he had serious doubts about Judy, but in the zombie apocalypse and Mr. Big and Nick saying good things about her, he's willing to give her a chance since she's proven herself as a warrior. So what's the plan of attack to take down the traitor? Find out in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: The faction has reloaded and reached the new embassy, who are extremely honored to be in the presence of Nick Wilde, one of the war's greatest soldiers and heroes, Judy is even offered a place in the ZPD by Chief Bogo. But there's bad news when the new embassy's leader, Mayor Lionheart reveals that the traitor had access to the back of the building and stole a helicopter and a storage container to drop the zombies off in the Burrows. What happens next? Read to find out, enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

Each faction member sat down at a large table with a plate of fruits and vegetables, even a few pastries in front of them. It was all enough to keep their stomachs full for a while. Clawhauser passed a donut to Gazelle with pink frosting and white sprinkles.

"Thank you. You're so sweet" Gazelle said taking the donut from him and taking a bite into it.

"Don't mention it" Clawhauser said as he kept on eating.

"You know, you're kinda cute" Gazelle said, catching the cheetah's attention and made him turn his head towards her with frosting and sprinkles all over his paws and lips.

"Really?" Clawhauser asked with a mouthful of food before swallowing it.

"Uh-huh. Not a lot of other animals have caught my eye before the zombies showed up. But you're certainly one heck of an exception" she said taking a napkin off the table and wiped off the sprinkles and frosting from his face and did the same with his paws, which made him blush slightly.

"I think you're cute too. I may have been a fan before all this, but now that I see who you really are, on and off the battlefield... I think I'm in love with you" Clawhauser said placing his paw on Gazelle's hoof.

"Aw, that's so sweet of you Clawhauser. I think I'm in love with you too" Gazelle said returning the blush and a cute smile.

"Ben, just call me Ben" Clawhauser said simply before pulling himself closer to Gazelle, allowing his lips to touch hers. The two began to kiss slowly and with great passion before it broke apart.

"I'd kill a million zombies just to be with you" Clawhauser said.

"I feel the same way about you... Ben" she said making Clawhauser's blush grow a darker shade of red.

Judy only had fruits and vegetables on her plate since that was what she was normally used to eating back in the Burrows. When she had finished consuming a few apples and carrots, she noticed Nick was reading his 'Prrride and Prrrejudice' book, hardly even touching his food.

"Aren't you gonna eat anything?" Judy asked, a little worried.

"I'll be fine, I've gone three to four days without food before back when the war was still being fought" Nick said turning the page of his book and onto the next chapter.

"You seriously starved yourself?" She asked.

"Yep, pretty much. The refugees needed food more than we did, so whatever food I had, I gave to the animals who were in hiding" Nick said, not taking his eyes off the page of his book. Judy then got closer to Nick and closed the book, which made him look to her.

"Soldiers gotta eat too. Come on, eat something. Your stomach's gotta be full too" Judy said taking a banana off his plate and took the peel off, handing it to Nick.

"Judy, I swear I'm fine" Nick said trying to put the banana back down on his plate, but Judy grabbed his wrist gently and made him put the banana back up to his mouth.

"Eat, you'll feel so much better if you do. I promise" Judy said rubbing his arm gently. Nick just stared at the banana and shrugged his shoulders before taking a bite out of it and chewing.

"Well?" Judy asked before Nick swallowed and then looked back to her.

"You're right, I do feel a little bit better" Nick said smiling and taking a larger second bite of the banana.

"See what did I tell ya?" Judy said as she sat back down in her chair and took a piece of cinnamon bread. Bellwether entered the room and caught the attention of everyone.

"Mayor Lionheart and Chief Bogo would like to see you in the briefing room now" she softly told them.

"Let's go, we have work to do" Nick said getting up from his seat and the others following him, Clawhauser was holding Gazelle's hoof as they walked to the briefing room. It was a pretty large room, the large wooden table in the center had eight chairs on each side, and two on the left and right ends. Bogo and Lionheart were sitting on the side closest to the windows that gave a wide view of the rain forest district of the city, as well as a few mountains, the horizon was slightly orange with a tint of pink because the sun was already setting. The rain forest district was one of the more lovely areas around Zombietopia, because it was one of the city's areas that the zombies hardly claimed during the war, and only a few sections of property were damaged and destroyed but the rest remained beautiful and untouched, not even a single cloud in the sky.

"Ah, good to see you. Shall we discuss business?" Lionheart asked as the faction took their seats, and Bellwether sat by the seat on the left of Lionheart.

"You remembered that we agreed on catching the traitor was our number one priority above planning a counterattack?" Nick began, tapping his claws against the table surface.

"We remember, but it's gonna be hard since they've been all around the city and no other uninfected animal can catch a glimpse of what they look like underneath that cloak" Bellwether said.

"But you did happen to mention they stole from the aircraft parking lot?" Judy piped into the conversation.

"Correct" Bogo simply replied.

"Then what we should do is try monitoring that area at all times. Security cameras, sniper patrols, any kind of defense we have will be put into finding the traitor" Judy suggested.

"We can try, but this traitor's very cunning and agile. They seem to be pretty fast to evade the camera and only strike right by the camera's blind angle" Lionheart pointed out.

"Plus, these cameras can easily be hackable. Whenever this animal shows up, they come up on a camera as a blurry black blob, or the screen cuts to static for a short period of time until they're out of the camera's sight" Bogo said, causing some concern about whether catching the traitor on the new embassy's grounds was possible or if it could be accomplished at all.

"Then we send out a squadron to search through the city. All the areas have to be thoroughly explored top to bottom. If there's at least one squad for each part of the city, they can't run or hide anywhere else" Nick suggested. Bogo, Lionheart, and Bellwether had began exchanging silent whispers and mutters among themselves until they turned their head back to Nick and his faction.

"We agree, a citywide search party seems to be the best idea" Lionheart began, letting Chief Bogo continue for him.

"Each of you will be split up to lead each squad of soldiers. All five search vehicles will have four soldiers, and one of you will lead them" Nick and Judy looked to one another and nodded to each other thinking that was probably the best course of action to take.

"Alright. We'll start tomorrow" Nick confirmed.

"Yes sir. It's getting late now, let's get some sleep. Meeting adjourned" Lionheart said leading Bellwether and Bogo out of the room, leaving Nick, Judy, Clawhauser, Gazelle, and Mrs. Otterton the only ones left.

"You heard him, guys. Pick a room and get some rest. We're gonna need it if we're gonna be looking around the city all day" Nick said as he left the room with his other teammates following him. There was a sign with arrows on it, containing words on it, sort of like the sign you'd see at a hotel. The second arrow on the top had the words 'Sleeping Chambers' inside it, and they all followed it to another hall that looked very similar to a very fancy mansion hallway and there were metal doors behind each room.

"Goodnight everyone. Have a good night's rest" Nick said before he claimed a room and Judy followed with him. Both animals took turns using the wash room and changing clothes. Judy was now wearing pink pajama pants and a black tank top, while Nick was only wearing his black pajama pants he wore last night, and he had no shirt on, revealing his scars. Even though she had already seen the many cuts, stabs, and bullets he'd taken over the years in battle, it still broke Judy's heart to see her lover and leader had gone through so much in his life.

"You never really told me how you got those scars" Judy said sitting down on the bed.

"Some animals didn't know what to do anymore. They just lost their minds, their hope, their sense of meaning. Sometimes they didn't know who anyone was anymore, so they resorted to violence to claim food, water, ammo, and shelter. Whenever that happened, someone had to step in before that could happen, I did it more often than most other soldiers" Nick said as he walked over to the bed and sat next to Judy running his paws through the fur on his head and scratching behind his ears to relieve tension from his body. Judy was slightly shocked and frightened that Nick was telling her this.

"You were very brave for doing all that for those animals who couldn't defend themselves" Judy said placing her paw on Nick's back where a claw mark ran down the middle of his back all the way to where his tail was attached.

"Sixty-Two visits to the infirmary in just a few years. But to claim territory against the zombies and protect the defenseless, it was all worth it. Every stab, scratch, bullet... it was all worth every moment I was lying in a hospital bed, getting blood transfused into me, IV needle hooked into my arm, I'd even take a missile for anyone who was lost and didn't know what else to do or where to go" Nick said as he looked down at his paws to show the bruises he got from punching many animals whether they were zombies or uninfected.

"I don't even know a single animal who'd be willing to do the things you'd be willing to do, Nick. Your bravery makes you different, it sets you apart from the other foxes. It shows me that all those things I was told about foxes growing up was wrong and that they have it harder than most other animals" Judy said, feeling bad because of everything she was told. Growing up she was told by her father, even her grandparents that foxes came from the devil, that they were nothing but crooks and killers, they didn't deserve to become anything better than what they were. Harmful things echoed in her head and her heart, she secretly cried for Nick and how hard he must have had it before the war and the zombies taking over.

"Thank you. It means a lot, coming from an animal of prey like you" Nick said as he got up and lifted up the covers getting underneath them. He let out a large sigh of comfort from how comfortable the mattress was, he'd never gotten to sleep in such a good bed back when he was a kit. Judy got in with him and gave him a look that showed she was both happy and sleepy, it made her feel good about herself knowing she was taking a big step for her own kind and actually comforting and falling in love with a fox, a soldier fox at that.

"You tired, whiskers?" Nick asked rubbing the fur on the top of her head and causing her to give a tired chuckle.

"My back feels so sore and I didn't even fight or pull out my weapons today" Judy said purring as she spoke.

"Probably from sitting around in that car too long. I swear, the hind leg that I kept on the gas pedal almost fell asleep, it started feeling fuzzy by the time we left Tundratown" Nick joked, which made Judy giggle some more. After some time of exchanging small talk between each other, both Nick and Judy began getting even more tired than they were before and they went to sleep. As they slept, Nick's body began to quiver underneath the blankets that covered both him and Judy, whimpering and grunting came from his throat and were audible through his lips. Nick was having a nightmare.

 **A/N: There you have it, the plan to catch the traitor and the revelation behind all of Nick's scars were revealed, even a small tender moment between Nick and Judy. But what's Nick's nightmare about? Is it that terrible enough to leave him whimpering and trembling? The next update will be all about Nick's nightmare as well as another shocking revelation that I'm sure you won't see coming. Please review, thanks!**


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: In the last chapter, a plan was discussed between Nick's faction and the new embassy to have a city wide search party to find the traitor and bring them in. Also, Nick tells Judy he was willing to step in whenever one animal lost who they were and decided to hurt others instead of the zombies, that's why had has all those scars underneath his shirt. And now, Nick is having a nightmare but what is it of? Read to find out, enjoy!**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

Pain, that's what filled my head right now. Not actual physical pain, but memories of pain. Nothing but a target for prey animals to pick on just because of my species, stereotypes being spat at in my face like acid. All those terrible memories filled my head, all because of the dream I was having.

 **(Nick's Dream)**

I was standing on a dirt road, the grass wasn't dead, it was sparkling from the dew. The sky was clear too, not a single cloud sparking with the stars in the night skies, this was what it was like before the war started and the zombies were almost every corner you turned or following right behind you, I missed whenever it was like this instead of constantly cloudy with ashes and rain falling from the skies, bodies of animals lying across the ground, or a destroyed building's rubble constantly poking at your hind paws, almost cutting them to the point where they would bleed.

"Wait a minute, I recognize this place" I whispered to myself as I walked down the dirt road and onto a large patch of grass. I stopped when I saw a small cottage with a large apple tree right next to it, a small swing hung from one of the branches and moved back and forth gently a couple inches with the gentle breeze that surrounded the area. This was my childhood home. I saw the door open up to show a fox I remembered all too well, purple dress, beautiful eyes, a loving and caring look on her face... it was my mother.

"Mom" I said aloud to myself.

"Mommy!" a voice called out. I looked to my left to see my younger self, I was about seven, eight, maybe nine years old around when this happened. The kit was wearing a scout's uniform with a red neckerchief, it was slightly out of place like someone had tackled him. He also had tears coming down his face and landing on the dirt path, leaving hardly visible tear marks in the dirt itself.

"Nicholas!" my mother called out running off the deck and towards the kit. She got down on her knees and opened her arms up, the kit ran up and hugged her, crying into her dress. Oh no, this day... anything but this day.

"Shh, it's okay Nicholas. They just don't know what it's like to be you. But if they did, you'd be a hero to them" Mom told the kit. All I could do now was just watch as the little kit version of myself was crying his eyes out into my mother's dress while she sang a special lullaby she always sang to me whenever I got bullied or had a bad dream, it made me smile a little bit to hear her singing voice again, even if it was just a dream.

"They hurt me, mommy, they put a muzzle on me, saying they'd never let a fox join them. They'll never like me" he said, that voice sounded worse than whenever a zombie claimed a life of an uninfected animal, maybe worse than the feeling of a knife cutting right through your heart.

"Don't worry, Nicholas, they will. It may not seem like it, but I can tell that you're gonna do amazing things for this world. And no matter what happens, no matter what you may do... you'll always be my sweet little kit" she told him. That's what she always called me whenever I was bullied or got hurt. The happy moment got interrupted when I heard glass breaking coming from inside the house, which caused my mother and my younger self to look at the opened door to the house.

"Stay here, sweetie. Alright?" she asked, the kit just nodded and watched his mom run into the house. I decided to follow her inside and walked right through the open door right behind her. I looked over to the window to see the younger me looking through the window outside the house, there was broken glass shards and plates all over the hardwood floor in the kitchen.

"Oh dear lord, no. Not this again" I thought to myself covering my mouth with my paws. This was when my life changed forever, and everything I loved crumbled down to the ground. My mom was looking to see a lion, one she'd never seen before eating all the raw meat out of the fridge.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?" my mom asked as she took a knife out of the cutlery, thinking it was some burglar and preparing to defend herself. What the younger me was about to see would never leave his head for the rest of his life. The lion looked over to my mother and showed that it's right side of it's face had pieces of it missing, muscle tissue and bone was visible through all that was missing on the face, some of it's teeth were cracked and fell out of it's mouth too.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!" my mother screamed before the zombie looked over to me and pounced on me like an uninfected lion would. That was all I remembered before I woke up.

 **(End of Dream)**

I jolted awake out of bed gasping for air like I was drowning, my heart was racing like I'd just gone on an extremely fast roller coaster or drank fifty cans of soda in one sitting. Judy was still asleep, looking so peaceful as she lied there. She had no idea how much I wanted to sleep peacefully like her, without any haunting memories invading my dreams and just let my body rest for one night. I just got out of the bed and stood on my hind paws, walking towards the exit. I needed some fresh air, so I decided to go up on the roof of the building.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

 **(Start playing 'Dead in the Water' by Ellie Goulding as you read this next part of the story)**

Little did Nick know that him getting out of bed had woken Judy up and she had watched him leave the room, so she decided to follow him, thinking something had woken him up and was feeling troubled. She had quietly followed Nick all the way up the stairs to the level above the one they were on before and saw Nick go out a door that lead to the roof where a helicopter pad was placed. Nick was sitting on the edge of the building, holding his paws together in his lap looking at the horizon which showed tiny hint of a sunrise, the colors of orange, purple, and yellow were visible in the sky as the tiny light had appeared over the mountain range.

"Hey, can't sleep?" Judy asked, catching Nick's attention and caused him to turn his head to see Judy walk over to him on the moist helicopter landing space that was because of the gentle drizzle of rain that had kept on going over the night and had sat down over the edge right next to him.

"No, it's not that, whiskers I just had a bad dream" Nick said as he didn't bother looking at her to respond to her question and let the gentle morning breeze surge through his exposed fur.

"You know... whenever I have bad dreams, I talk about them with someone. It always makes me feel better whenever I talk about them with someone else" Judy said looking over to see the beautiful image of the sunrise over the mountains.

"It was a really bad memory. Back when I was a kit animals of prey were normally the ones who bullied me, I never fit in in school, I even joined the scouts but didn't make any friends. All I wanted to do was help others, but I couldn't because of the stereotypes" Nick began looking at Judy and placing his paw over Judy's, in which she responded by taking it into both her paws and grip it gently for comfort.

"Is that it?" Judy asked, looking into Nick's emerald green eyes. Nick had the most beautiful eyes, that's what Judy thought.

"No, it was the memory of the day me and my mom were separated. I came home from a scouts meeting, I was hurt all over the place and my uniform was trashed. My mom came outside to hug me and sing to me, she always did that whenever I was sad. Our happiness was interrupted when a zombie barged into the house and started eating all our food. That was my dream" Nick had finished explaining and letting Judy take in everything he had told her.

"I know you had it bad, Nick. But you're terribly misunderstood. You know what I see?" asked Judy as she moved closer to Nick and snuggled into his side that had three claw marks and a bullet wound embedded into his flesh.

"What?" Nick asked gently looking down to her, letting one paw touch her back.

"On the outside, I see a fox who's taken so much hurt and pain. A fox who's known nothing but anger, oppression, and hate all his life" Judy said tracing her claws gently on his scars, trying to soothe his nerves more than the sunset could. Then, Judy had placed her right paw on Nick's heart, feeling it beat inside his chest.

"But, on the inside... I see a fox who's truly a hero. One who'd never wish that pain onto any other animal, a fox who'd take a million bullets, stabbings, and scratches to make sure they never got hurt... to make sure they'd get to see the sunrise one more day" Judy said in whispers, while Nick placed his other paw on top of Judy's that had been placed on his heart to feel the warmth of both his heart and her paw.

"There's still something else, you're hurting on the inside. Your mother loves you very much. I can only imagine what it must be like for a mother to live life without her son, fearing she's gonna lose them in a battle one day. No mother should have to go through that, and neither should a son see their mother die" Judy said, noticing Nick had closed his eyes, letting out tears onto his lap.

"I really miss her. I just want all of this to end so I can see her again, but at the same time I wanna stay strong for you, for Clawhauser, for Gazelle, and for Mrs. Otterton" Nick said with his voice cracking. The bunny couldn't believe her eyes or ears, Nick Wilde, war hero to all and leader of a faction against the zombies was crying of the pain of missing his mother.

"You don't have to be strong all the time, it's okay to cry. And it's okay to miss your mother. You don't feel pain from weapons striking you, but it's missing your mother that's what really hurts you, right?" Judy asked, Nick didn't speak and only let out some sobs as he let the tears keep on falling. Judy had now used her paw to wipe them away and pull Nick closer to her and kissed him for a brief minute and a half, which he had returned happily before breaking it apart to speak again.

"It's not the end, that much I know. After we catch that traitor and plan a proper counterattack on the zombies, I promise I'll take you to wherever the uninfected were evacuated and reunite you with your mother" Judy said, this made Nick open his eyes. He was surprised a little bit, Judy Hopps was making a promise to him that she would help him find his mother, the one animal who he longed to see again ever since he was separated from her when he was a little kit.

"Promise?" Nick asked quietly. Judy only nodded and kissed his cheek before speaking again.

"Promise" the bunny said before they began to hug and feel tiny little drops of water touch their fur, not a whole lot, but just a little.

"Should we go inside?" Judy asked.

"Nah, just a small morning drizzle. It feels really nice, just live in the moment, cottontail" Nick said as he pulled Judy into a passionate kiss in which she kissed back and both had their forearms wrapped around one another and let the small raindrops touch their fur, giving them a feeling of peace and comfort that contributed to the beautiful sunrise they were looking at not too long ago. Neither animal had wanted this moment to end, for to them... it was the perfect moment, the moment one would normally have in their dreams or in a painting, and they didn't want anyone or anything to ruin it for either one of them.

( **You can stop playing the song now)**

Back inside, Mrs. Otterton had woken up early to go to the mess hall to make a cup of hot tea like she used to do before the war. Her concentration was cut when she saw a black cloak she was all too familiar with.

"Traitor" she growled and followed them down the stairs and towards an underground level that she hadn't explored yet around the facility. The otter had opened the door and looked around the door to see laboratories with glass walls, each one holding a zombie strapped to a gurney, or robots working on some kind of serum or potion.

"What is this place?" Mrs. Otterton wondered to herself as she gazed at each lab. Muffled screaming filled her ears and saw that one of the labs had the doors open and tied to an upwards placed gurney was her husband, Mr. Otterton, wearing a straight jacket and a muzzle.

"Honey" she said smiling and ran over to him, ripping the muzzle off and took off his bindings as well as the straight jacket, which allowed the male otter to hug his wife.

"You're still here" he said.

"I told myself I'd never leave until I found you. Now I have" Mrs. Otterton said as she held onto her husband tighter than she ever did before.

"I love happy moments. Never thought I'd have to barge right in and ruin one" a voice said. Mr. and Mrs. Otterton looked to the shadows to reveal the cloaked traitor taking the hood of the cloak off to reveal the face of Bellwether, which brought shock and anger to Mrs. Otterton.

 **A/N: Yep! Bellwether is the traitor. She's the one who's responsible for everything, releasing the zombies from quarantine, the war, everything! But we did see Nick's nightmare and that underneath that scarred body, lies someone who dearly misses his mother, and Judy makes a promise to make sure he's reunited with her. And Mrs. Otterton is finally reunited with her captive husband, only to have the happy moment ruined at the last minute. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Nick had a nightmare that was a bad memory, the day he and his mom were separated because of the zombies, the first time he ever saw a zombie in his life. And Judy shared a romantic moment with him, promising that he would get to see his mother again before they began kissing tenderly in front of the sunset and a slight mid-morning drizzle. Not to mention Mrs. Otterton had reunited with her husband, only to cross paths with the traitor to reveal it was Dawn Bellwether of the new embassy of Zombietopia. Get ready as we pick up where we left off in this epic new chapter. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The only things Mrs. Otterton could feel surging through her heart was feelings of betrayal an anger. Someone she trusted, someone she and her friends turned to for help was responsible for the city they lived in turning into a desolate shadow of it's former self.

"Dawn? You're the traitor?" asked the otter as she kept her husband behind her, not wanting to risk losing him again. Bellwether only chuckled as she paced around the two otters and dropped her black cloak to the floor of the lab. Her hoof had found it's way to a desk where a tray of syringe needles filled with pink liquid with black cells floating around inside, and picked one up, pointing the tip at Mrs. Otterton and her husband as if it was a knife.

"Afraid? No? You should be, this is the same virus found in every zombie in the city. It flows through their veins instead of the blood that once made them who they were" Bellwether said, continuing her pacing around Mr. and Mrs. Otterton.

"Why would you do all this? The zombies, the war, everything!?" Mrs. Otterton said, keeping her defense up in case Bellwether attempted to attack and kill her and her husband. Bellwether laughed a little bit before looking back up with a look only a psycho killer in a horror movie would give their victims before cutting their life short.

"Animals have seemed to forgotten how it used to be, the predators would hunt the prey, making them feel weak and helpless. That was before this city was founded, where predator and prey could put their differences aside and live in peace... I wasn't having none of that, so I decided to put together a chemical weapon that would be dropped on the city and revert the predators back to the killers they used to be and attack the prey. The formula wasn't complete yet, but one of the animals working on it decided to gas themselves to death using it because they were depressed over the loss of their loved ones or something. It didn't have the results I was hoping for... but they were better than I ever dreamed they would be. It not only affected predators but prey too! Turning them into the most feared killing machines in the whole world, zombies" Bellwether had explained, letting out sinister and sickly chuckles.

"Why did you let them out of their containment after they were infected? They were locked away for a reason!" Mr. Otterton spoke up from behind his wife, just as terrified and angered as she was that one their city's public servants had been wanting to do terrible things to her home, the one she served alongside Lionheart for years.

"That idiot lion was getting in the way of my plan. When he ordered them to be locked away until a cure could be found, I was angered beyond belief, all my hopes and dreams would have been flushed away if a cure had been developed sooner than the scientists would have hoped. So, in order to not be noticed by the cameras and exposing me, I made the cloak you've seen me wear for years to hide my face and body when I freed them all late that night when nearly everyone in the facility went home for the night" Bellwether kept on talking. The more Bellwether talked, the more angrier and betrayed the Otterton duo had felt. Mrs. Otterton attempted to move forth taking a fighting stance to take down the sheep herself, but all she got was nearly getting stabbed with the needle which pushed her back to where she stood before.

"You must REALLY wanna die if you're stupid enough to try and attack me while I'm holding the virus in my hooves" Bellwether said with a smug look on her face.

"I take it you were also the one to steal that helicopter and storage container to place some zombies in the Burrows where Judy's family lived?" Mrs. Otterton accused, changing the subject of the virus being held in her hooves to how she was responsible for the zombies invading Judy's homeland as well. Bellwether laughed with a nod as she did.

"Smart little otter, aren't you? And I thought you were just a lovesick warrior only concerned about her husband. I didn't think you'd ever care when I dumped the rest" the treacherous sheep said looking down at the needle and caressed the glass cylinder that kept the virus inside it gently. That last part of her sentence got Otterton curious.

"What do you mean by that? Dumping the rest?" Mr. Otterton asked.

"I'm glad you asked. I plan on compiling every zombie in the city into those storage crates and giving them on airlift onto the train tracks that lead to all the areas outside the city where the uninfected ones got evacuated to using one of the helicopters in the back. There will be zombies everywhere, there won't be a single trace of anyone uninfected anywhere" Bellwether said, Mrs. Otterton had the urge to punch Bellwether in the face, but was in no position to, due to the virus being contained inside a needle that she threatened to jab inside them with and plant it inside them.

"You're insane, you always will be. The city wasn't enough and neither was the Burrows so you're just gonna infect the whole world with your zombies" Mr. Otterton snarled, taking a fighting stance like his wife.

"Too bad you're not gonna get a chance to say any of this to the others, because you'll be dead. But you should know, I'm not completely without mercy" the sheep said before pulling out a gun from inside her cardigan and loaded it.

"I'm gonna let you choose how you die. You can just take the virus and become a zombie... or I can just shoot you both, quick and painless as well as plain and simple" Bellwether offered holding out the needle and gun in front of them. Mrs. Otterton noticed a sign right by the cabinets where the scientists would keep their working supplies, it was yellow and it showed a gun inside a circle with a line right across it and underneath it were the words 'Please do not fire bullets in laboratories. Alarms will go off if bullets are fired'. Reading the sign quietly to herself in her mind gave her an in idea and looked to Bellwether.

"I choose option number three. None of the above!" she shouted before jumping up towards the gurney her husband was tied to before and bounced off the padding, knocking Bellwether to the floor. When she fell, Bellwether had dropped the needle containing the virus on the floor, breaking the glass and the liquid forming a tiny pink puddle on the floor and she felt the gun taken from her by Mrs. Otterton. She then shot the gun at the glass walls that stood between the lab and the hallway, firing about five shots into the glass before all the bullets kept in it's clip were gone.

"Uh oh, guess everyone else is gonna find out about your plan" Otterton said as soon as the room was illuminated with flashing red lights due to the sirens on the ceilings, and a voice spoke on the PA system, repeating the same words over and over again in a mechanical female voice.

"Warning! Shots fired in laboratory F!" the voice repeated over and over. Nick and Judy had heard this and went back to their room to get Nick's machete and Judy's tomahawks. Clawhauser and Gazelle were still asleep until they heard the alarms and got their golf clubs and bow ready to fight, running down to the labs like Nick and Judy were, following right behind them.

"Mrs. Otterton!" Nick called out when he and the others had barged into the lab.

"I have some good news to tell you guys. Not only did I find my husband, but I found the traitor as well" Mrs. Otterton said pointing to Bellwether who just got up from the floor and stared at the faction with a stone cold glare that would turn any animal to stone (If she were Medusa that is).

"Okay fine, you caught me. But that doesn't mean you're gonna stop me from completing the rest of my plan" Bellwether said, not bothering to pick up her cloak and stood where she was.

"Plan? What plan?" Judy asked, gripping her weapons tightly and preparing to attack Bellwether with them.

"She's gonna gather up every zombie in the city and have them invade the areas the uninfected were evacuated to using an airlift as well as those storage containers and dropping them onto the train tracks that lead to those areas, just like she did to the Burrows" Mr. Otterton explained. Judy was now angry that she realized that Bellwether was responsible for her home being invaded by the zombies, because she put them there.

"I swear I'm gonna kill you!" Judy shouted charging at Bellwether.

"Judy, no! Don't!" Nick called out, but it was too late. Bellwether had jumped and kicked Judy multiple times in the face which launched her back onto the ground by Nick's hind paws.

"Your anger has unbalanced you. Even I know that's not the way of a soldier" Bellwether taunted the bunny as Nick helped her up and picked her axes off the floor before handing them back to her.

"And Nick, I don't know what I admire more... your bravery and skill as a warrior, or your cunningness as a fox" Bellwether said, now taunting Nick with fox stereotypes like the bullies from his past did, which made him grit his teeth and prepare his machete to attack. The sheep had now walked over to a metal door with a panel right next to it with two red buttons on top one another. The first button she pushed shut the door behind them and locked it, trapping them in the lab, while the second one she pushed opened the door right next to the panel itself and revealed a panda zombie crawling from behind the door.

"Take your positions everyone" Nick ordered, which sent all the other faction members into attack positions. The zombie was now fully out the door and it's legs were missing, which showed the bottom of it's spine and his organs were being dragged behind it, the stomach, intestines, and the liver.

"I'll leave you to have your fun with my little friend here. I have work to do" Bellwether said as she bounced off the gurney and broke through the glass wall which lead to another lab, which she ran out the door and up the stairs at the other end of the hallway. The zombie charged at Nick and his response was a jumping over it and throwing his machete into it's shoulder which made it scream in massive pain.

"Gazelle, pin him down!" Nick shouted.

"No problem, boss" Gazelle said as she fired arrows into the panda's arms and lower body that were so deep the tips of the arrows dug themselves into the floor, leaving the zombie immobile.

"Clawhauser, rough him up" Nick said. Clawhauser used both clubs to slam them down on the zombie's back to cause some damage and make it even more immobile than it already was.

"Judy, you have the honors" the fox said giving his lover a wink, which she returned and used her tomahawks to slice through the zombie's neck and decapitate it. The head rolled over to Mrs. Otterton's hind paws and the eyes looked up at her, with the mouth letting out some groans before it died completely.

"Good work everyone. The good news is, we know who the traitor is and we know what they're planning to do" Nick said bringing the entire team together to put together a new plan since the old plan was now considered ineffective and something else would have to be done about Bellwether.

"The bad news is, we don't know how we can stop it. She's gonna gather every zombie in the city and try and infect every last animal that was evacuated" Judy piped in.

"How can we take out every single zombies at once? Not to mention they'll be on different bridges to different areas of the city's outskirts" Gazelle asked. Judy had come up with an idea after a brief minute of silence.

"I got an idea, each of us will be stationed on a different set of tracks. With one or more sets of weapons we take out every last zombie that Bellwether drops off and throws our way. We gotta make sure we have enough ammunition and bombs to make sure we take out every last one of them" Judy suggested. The others smiled and whispered and muttered to each other nodding in approval before looking at the bunny.

"There are those good ideas I always love hearing" Nick said playfully knocking on Judy's head, making her chuckle and push the paw away lightly.

"Nick, stop it" she said giggling and blushing.

"Good idea, but there's one downside to it. Where are we gonna get all that ammo and bombs to keep us well protected enough?" Mr. Otterton asked.

"Just say 'Show me the armory', and you'll have more than enough" a voice said. Everyone looked to the door to see Lionheart and Bogo standing outside the door and opening it with a card-key, swiping it on the handle of the door itself before entering the lab.

"We saw everything on the security cameras and went down to see if you needed any help with that zombie before Bellwether left, but it seems you've taken care of it already" Bogo said looking down at the corpse of the panda zombie who had just been killed off by Nick and all his faction members.

"Bellwether cannot be allowed to get away with this. We wanna help any way we can" Lionheart said before Bogo spoke again.

"You also know that if this plan is successful. You will have taken out every last zombie in the city and we'll have it back for good" Bogo said, making everyone realize that their goal was just one victory away if they managed to kill every last zombie in sight, for Nick, it was just one victory away from seeing his mother again and a life with Judy as his mate for the rest of his life.

"Alright, you say you wanna help... show us the armory" Nick said as he took his machete out of the panda zombie's shoulder and twirled it around in his paw.

 **A/N: Action is coming your way for the next couple of chapters, because now that Bellwether's plan has been revealed, Nick and everyone else can now make a proper counterattack and take back the city once and for all. The battle comes in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: The time has now come for the final battle to take back Zombietopia to begin, and make it Zootopia once again. The new embassy has offered their help in taking down Bellwether and ruining her plan to infect the outskirts of the city with every last zombie in the city, and with more than enough weapons to keep them alive and well defended against the zombies, this should be an interesting battle for sure. Enjoy!**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

There were about four bridges of train tracks that lead to the outskirts of Zombietopia (Well five, because of the one that leads to the Burrows but that place was already invaded, so I crossed that one off). So the next morning, the new embassy formed a plan that we'd split up and take a bridge and fight the zombies off ourselves until every last one of them were destroyed, and if Bellwether had crossed paths with us, we'd take her out with all her little flesh-eating buddies. Bogo had offered to drive us to each bridge in an armored vehicle that used to belong to the police force, we made sure to get whatever weapons we had from our old car and load them up as much as we could. The first bridge was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Otterton, Clawhauser volunteered to take the second bridge, and that was where we stopped next.

"Alright, here's your stop Clawhauser. Good luck" Bogo said turning his head back to Clawhauser who saluted him and got out the car.

"Ben!" Gazelle called out before jumping out of the car with him and spoke.

"No matter what happens, I'm really glad I got to fight beside you" Gazelle said pulling the hefty cheetah in for a kiss, which he returned happily. I remember Judy saying that they got together before we started planning this whole thing and I had to admit they looked cute together. When Gazelle broke the kiss, Clawhauser spoke.

"I am too" he said simply.

"Are you sure you're gonna be okay?" I piped in, worried for the safety of my faction member and my first friend ever since the war ended. Clawhauser just walked to the trunk and got his weapons before looking back to me.

"Don't worry, I'll be alright. Besides, I've finally got a chance to use this" he said holding up the large Gatling gun that Yax had given him back at the oasis with a belt containing bullets was loaded inside it, he sure looked ready for battle. After we all exchanged goodbyes, we started driving to the third bridge where Gazelle would take her position. Fortunately, that bridge wasn't far from the second bridge. After she got out and wished us luck, it was Judy and I's turn to be dropped off at the fourth and final bridge. The minute we stopped, Judy looked to Bogo and spoke.

"Thank you for everything you've done for us. It helps" Judy said. Bogo only smiled.

"Don't mention it. Just so you know, if we do win this battle... there's a special place in the ZPD for you. We always welcome warriors and war heroes" Bogo said holding his hoof out to shake, which Judy accepted and shook back. After she got out the car, I was about to get out with her, I felt Bogo's hoof grab the sleeve of my jacket.

"Not so fast. I wanna have a word with you, Wilde" he told me. I just got back in my seat and let him talk.

"I know you love her, I saw you two on the roof that morning. Never knew how much you two really meant to each other" Bogo told me. I just nodded in response to it and spoke.

"She means the world to me. We may have known each other for only a few days but we both have the same feelings of affection for each other" I told him.

"I thought so. That is why..." he paused and opened the glove box and pulled out a small box with blue felt fabric on it. The moment I opened it, I saw a small ring, a silver band with five small pearls on the left and right sides of a beautiful diamond in the center.

"... I want you to have it. I found it in a jewelry store that was abandoned after we lost the war. A special victory like this deserves a special question to be answered" Bogo told me with a wink. I just closed the box and put it in the left pocket of my jacket.

"Thank you" I said before getting out the vehicle with a salute and meeting up with Judy.

"You ready?" I asked pulling my machete out and twirling it around in my paw. She responded by taking her sawed off double barrel and loaded some shells into it.

"Ready" Judy told me with a nod. We then ran towards the bridge and climbed on top of it, I had to help Judy up since she had some trouble with slipping whenever she placed her hind paw on the concrete surface. The minute we were both up, we ran as far down the bridge as we could, stopping right in the middle between the city and the outskirts, ready for battle.

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

The helicopter was in the air and carrying a metal cargo storage container. Clawhauser's bridge was the first to receive some zombies. After the crate had been dropped off on the bridge, the helicopter flew back into the lower levels of the city. The minute the crate touched the surface of the bridge, the door opened and at least 150 zombies came out and approached Clawhauser who had now loaded his gun and gotten ready to fire.

"Eat lead, zombies!" Clawhauser shouted as he put his claw on the trigger and screamed a loud battle cry as the zombies came toward him. The bullets came out rapidly as the percussion caps spun around clockwise and shells dropped to the bridge and falling off the edges as well. Clawhauser felt the bridge shake underneath his feet as he fired the gun as well as his entire body with each bullet that came out the gun. Each zombie that even attempted to get close to Clawhauser got a clean shot though their heads or had their bodies or heads completely blown to bits taking multiple bullets at once. Soon, just as about all the bullets were out, there were no zombies anywhere except lying down with their remains lying down on the bridge.

"I did it? I got them all? Hahahahahahaha! WooHoo!" Clawhauser exclaimed, dropping his gun on the bridge and started doing a little victory dance where he stood.

"I killed all those zombies! I killed all those zombies!" the cheetah chanted as he danced.

The helicopter had dropped another 150 zombies on the bridge Gazelle was standing on. She had prepared an arrow for her bow and took aim as the zombies charged for her.

"The one important thing you didn't know about me, Bellwether is that I'm a master at hitting the target every single time" Gazelle whispered to herself before firing an arrow and it went through four zombie foreheads, taking their heads off.

"Like that" Gazelle said withdrawing another arrow from her case and shot them at some more zombies that came her way. Whenever there were any zombies that came too close for her to shoot down, she pulled out a pistol that Nick strongly advised her to keep around just in case and shot them down. Whenever Gazelle shot an arrow, it went through two or three zombie heads to she took down more than she hoped she would in just one or two shots with her arrows.

"It's like my song says, I won't give up and I won't give in until I reach the end" Gazelle said as she fired one final bullet into a zombie's forehead with her pistol and blew the smoke away from the nozzle of the gun.

The third crate of zombies had been dropped off at the first bridge that Mr. and Mrs. Otterton were placed and they both were taking out zombies equally as fast than they came at them.

"Just like the old days of the war, huh?" asked Mrs. Otterton lunging her knife backwards into a zombie's head above her shoulder while her husband was taking out zombies two at a time using his twin pistols that his wife had kept around when she found him and return them to him.

"Yeah and these pistols are just what they used to be, handy" Mr. Otterton said as he shot more zombies and quickly switched the clips out whenever he ran out of bullets to fire.

"You remember the time we took down that Rhino zombie who nearly tore down that small coffee shop and took out the entire establishment? That was a blast" Mrs. Otterton said as she decapitated a few more zombies as well as her husband shooting a few more in the head.

"Oh yeah, good times, huh?" Mr. Otterton said reloading his weapons and began shooting again. Soon, there were more coming that came out of the cargo container as it was now empty. Mrs. Otterton got an idea and saw that were was cracks in the asphalt as well as some missing bits of it. Seeing the faults in the bridge gave her an idea and put her knives away.

"Toss me your guns!" she shouted. Mr. Otterton didn't argue and just tossed them to her and shot as much bullets as she could at the cracks, making them bigger and causing the bridge to become weaker. The minute more zombies stepped on where Mrs. Otterton was shooting at, the surface collapsed and every zombie fell into the water to drown and die.

"Nice thinking" Mr. Otterton said kissing his wife on the cheek.

"Thanks, I just hope Nick and Judy are okay" Mrs. Otterton said looking farther to the horizon where the other bridges were.

Back on the bridge Nick and Judy were stationed at, they saw the helicopter carrying the last bit of zombies land on top of the bridge. Out of the cockpit stepped out Bellwether with a smug look and holding her hooves together.

"Well well well, looks like you came up with a plan after all. But you think it'll be enough to take on these zombies and myself?" Bellwether asked pulling out a pair of police batons and jumped off the crate running with the zombies and started fighting Judy who withdrew her tomahawks from her belt to fight. Nick was mostly taking care of the zombies and kept on slicing, jabbing, stabbing, and cutting through every zombie that was headed right towards him. Only a soldier like Nick could handle this much pressure.

"You turned my home into a slaughterhouse!" Judy shouted as she hit the batons with her axes so hard that one of the batons fell out of her hooves and was left with only one to defend herself from Judy's attacks.

"My parents almost died because of you! You tore apart families and friends with your stupid little ideas! Nick was separated from his mother because you wanted to decide who lives and dies in this city!" Judy screamed as she now slammed both axes on the baton and shattered it into metal shards landing on the surface of the bridge.

"It's called the circle of life, Hopps. The sooner you become a zombie, the better you'll understand it" Bellwether said pulling out another syringe containing the virus inside, which made Judy's heart race inside her chest, thinking that it was the end and Nick would be forced to kill her if she became a zombie. Nick had noticed what she was doing and killed two more zombies before engaging the sheep in close combat and blocked every attack with his forearms and swiped his machete around her to get her to back up a little bit.

"You couldn't just leave the zombies be and become a war hero, didn't you?" Bellwether asked as she tried jabbing Nick again but he dodged it by doing a back flip and swiped his machete towards her face which left a scar above and below her left eye.

"The zombies never belonged with us. And you can't kill hope, it's an immortal beacon to those who don't have it!" Nick said as he shoved his elbow into Bellwether's wrist and knocked the needle out of her hoof before taking it and jabbing it into where her shoulder met her neck and kicked her away.

"Nice moves" Judy said approaching Nick and hugging him. She thought that if he made one wrong move he'd be a goner.

"Thanks, now let's handle the rest of these mindless corpses" Nick said as he and Judy now fought the last of the zombies off, cutting off every last one of their heads or penetrating their skulls with blades or bullets. Within ten minutes, every last body was no longer moving.

"We did it" the fox and rabbit both whispered at the same time and began chanting louder and cheering, even hugging and nuzzling each other as well.

"Nick, we did it! We got Zootopia back!" Judy cheered jumping up and down happily.

"No more zombies!" Nick cried in happiness. But their little celebration was cut short when they heard moaning and groaning. They both turned their heads to see Bellwether with black veins surrounding her eyes which were now pale white with no pupils or anything, needle still sticking into her neck but the vial was empty, and her arteries were black and purple.

"You cannot be serious! She's a zombie too!?" Judy exclaimed backing away in shock.

"Leave this one to me, you've already fought enough. You deserve a rest" Nick said before charging at the now zombified Bellwether. When Nick had jabbed her right in the stomach, her hooves were placed on Nick's forearm and pulled it towards her mouth and sunk her teeth into it, causing him to scream in pain and fall to the bridge's surface.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

"NICK!" I shouted with tears in my eyes as I saw him with a bleeding zombie bite mark in his arm. This was the final straw, I've had it with this battle, with the zombies, and with Bellwether. She hurt my Nick, and now I'm gonna make her die for it! That's when I took my tomahawk and swung it into the side of her neck, making her scream in pain and roar up to the sky.

"Didn't like that huh? Well you're not gonna like this either!" I exclaimed taking Nick's machete out of her stomach and lashed it across where my tomahawk was dug into her neck, making her head fall off her neck and fall into the water. All my anger went away and I dropped my ax and Nick's machete when I ran to him. He was convulsing and his paw was twitching.

"Nick, no. don't die on me, please don't die" I cried, letting my tears fall onto his jacket. The veins on his arm turned black and purple as they were slowly infecting his arm. I had to do something, so I picked up the machete from off the bridge's surface and saw that the infection was all the way up to the bottom of his elbow.

"I'm sorry, Nick" I whispered before letting out a loud battle cry and slammed the blade down on the infected part of the forearm, slicing it off and stopping the infection before it spread to his brain. Blood had now leaked on the cement and I took my jacket off, wrapping it around the wound to stop the bleeding.

"You're not gonna die, Nick. I promise, the others need you, Zootopia needs you... I need you. I love you Nick! You can't leave me Nick I love you!" I shouted at the unconscious Nick in my arms while crying my eyes out onto his jacket. The sound of a helicopter made me look over to the side to see Lionheart and Bogo flying a different helicopter with Gazelle, the Ottertons, and Clawhauser on board. I picked Nick up into my arms, he wasn't at all heavy and boarded the chopper as soon as it got close.

"Take us to the nearest hospital in the safe-zone! Nick needs help!" Judy called out to Lionheart and Bogo who were at the controls.

"Right away!" Lionheart said now flying over to the uninfected areas of the city. The entire faction could rest happily knowing there would be no more zombies left to fight. But now there was something else to be concerned about, whether or not Nick would make it as they surrounded his unconscious body with worried faces, worrying for the life of their faction leader, friend, as well as a great hero to them all.

 **A/N: The final battle has been fought, and Bellwether and her zombies are gone forever! Zombietopia is now Zootopia once again, the bad news is that Nick got bitten by a zombie of Bellwether and Judy was forced to cut his arm off so the infection wouldn't spread. Nick's gonna be okay, don't worry, I promise. True heroes never die, they live to tell their stories and pass on their teachings of bravery to others. More to come in the next update. Please review, thanks!**


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: The final battle has been fought but the only downside is that Nick had his forearm bitten by a zombie Bellwether and Judy killed her as well as cut off Nick's infected part of his forearm all the way up to the bottom of his elbow. Now Judy and the rest of the faction are escorting Nick to a medical center in the safe-zones of the city. After this chapter there will be an epilogue & 'Zombietopia' will get a happy ending all the fans of this story will love! Enjoy!**

 **(Nick's P.O.V.)**

The last thing I remembered was Bellwether coming back as a zombie on that bridge and she bit me when my machete got caught in her stomach and I blacked out after that. My arm felt weird and fuzzy, and I felt my body lying on it's back against soft padding, why wasn't I zombie? Wasn't I doomed to become the very monster I swore to kill? Opening my eyes was a bit of a challenge but I finally managed to blink a little bit.

"Nick?" Judy's voice spoke to me. Where she here with me? Where was here anyways? All I did in response to Judy's voice calling my name out was a groan of pain.

"Nick, are you alright? Please wake up" Judy's voice called out to me with a more begging tone. That was when I fully opened my eyes and sat up where I was. I was in a hospital bed somewhere with an IV connected into my left paw, but the lower part of my forearm that got bitten by Bellwether wasn't there, there was no bite, no fur, and no flesh either... only metal. The infected piece of my arm had been sliced off and replaced with this mechanical one, the silver prosthetic had some wires running on the inside it with some other parts covered with some slightly curved metal sheets over them to serve as a protective shell, and my paw was metal, with joints made from the same type of metal with wires running through them and more wires on the back of it with a protective shell over it too.

"I'm sorry Nick. I had no choice but to cut it off, if I didn't you would have been a zombie within a few minutes" Judy's voice said. I looked to the side of my bed to see Judy sitting beside my bed and then looked from her to my mechanical forearm, willing the claws and hearing them making small and slightly silent little robotic movement noises as they wiggled. The odd part was I could feel them wiggling too, they must have had some sort of motion sensor technology installed into them. Technology must have really advanced during the time of being evacuated the city, huh?

"You did this?" I asked. Judy only nodded at my question, looking guilty as she confessed to me. The first thing I did was pull Judy into a hug, my mechanical hand feeling the fabric of her shirt, this thing was pretty good with it's programming and structure.

"Judy, thank you. If you hadn't done that I wouldn't be here right now. I'd rather have my other forearm and my legs replaced with things like this rather than be a zombie and turn my back on you" I said placing my flesh and blood paw on her cheek to show how sincere I was.

"You really mean that?" she asked me. I just used my robot paw to pull her chin gently closer to my face and kiss her softly for a few seconds before pulling away.

"Does that answer your question?" I asked. The sound of the door opening made us look to see Clawhauser, the Ottertons, and Gazelle entering. Mayor Lionheart and Chief Bogo were with them too.

"How you doing buddy?" Clawhauser asked.

"Pretty strange having a robot paw like it's some sort of science-fiction movie, but I'm doing alright" I said flexing my paw some more and stretching it out.

"You really had us worried, Nick. We weren't sure if you were gonna make it or not. You were losing a lot of blood" Mrs. Otterton said with concern in her voice but with a smile of relief on her face.

"Well, I'm here now. Thanks for your concern though" I said giving her a 'Claws Up' with my paw that wasn't cut off.

"Congratulations Judy, you too Nick. We've already broken the news to the survivors and now the evacuated wanna go back to the city" Lionheart said. That really made me feel good, all that time walking around in that wasteland was worth it, because now there were no more zombies and the city was ready to be repopulated again like it used to. Zombietopia was no more.

"I've also announced that as soon as everything was rebuilt you'd both be a part of the force. Maybe even putting some time into training new recruits. We could use war heroes training the next generation of officers don't you think?" Bogo offered to us. Judy and I looked at each other and exchanged one small nod before looking back to him.

"We'd be honored, Chief" Judy spoke up. Looks like now we were not only heroes but ZPD officers as well, making a difference for the new Zootopia and it's citizens.

"Also, there was someone outside the room wanting to see Nick. Never seen her before" Gazelle piped in. I just kicked the blanket off of myself and got up off the bed, standing on my hind paws again.

"Just let them in" I said. Gazelle then walked over to the door and peeked her head out to say 'You can come in now' to someone standing outside. After that was said, a female fox in a purple dress came into the room. My heart started racing inside my chest, it was my mother, who looked just as shocked to see me as I was to see her. She started to cry and ran over to me, wrapping me in her arms and I returned the hug, listening to her sobs and cries of happiness.

"Nicholas. I missed you so much" she said in between her tears. I smiled and took a happy breath as we hugged, I wanted this hug to last for a long time since I haven't hugged her in years. Words couldn't even describe how happy I was right now to be hugging her again and to hear her voice.

"I missed you too mom, every day for as long as I fought in that war" I whispered back into her ear before we broke apart the hug and she took my robotic paw into her own paws smiling.

"You don't know how proud I am of you" my mother told me. I could tell Judy was watching me with a smile on her face, she promised me I'd get to see my mother again and so here I stand hugging her in front of all my friends, my girlfriend, and the members of the new embassy of Zootopia.

"Mom, there's someone I want you to meet" I said looking over to Judy and nudged my head to the side, signaling her to come over to my side. Judy got out of her chair and walked over to me, holding her paw into my flesh and blood one.

"This is Judy Hopps, my girlfriend" I said introducing her.

"Pleasure to meet you. Nick's told me a lot of good things about you" Judy told my mother. The only response that she gave Judy was a hug, she was purring too.

"Thank you so much for everything you've done, for the city, and my son as well" I heard her say. Judy began returning the hug and smiled with her eyes closed.

"You're welcome ma'am" Judy said.

"No need to be so formal, Judy. Just call me Lacey" she said. This felt so good, reuniting with my mom and her meeting my girlfriend for the first time. I then just remembered that my jacket was sitting on one of the chairs that was against the wall that looked like the one Judy was sitting in. I walked over to the jacket and took the cased ring out of the pocket with my robot paw.

"You saved the jacket" I said, catching Judy's attention as well as my mothers.

"I know you love that jacket. I couldn't just leave it, so I kept it safe" Judy told me. Clawhauser then approached me with some clothes in his paws.

"We all thought you deserved some new clothes since you won't be needing the old ones anymore. So we all pitched in and bought you some new clothes for when you woke up" he told me handing me the clothes. They were gray skinny jeans and a black long-sleeved v-neck shirt.

"Thanks buddy, you know you didn't have to do this you guys" I said looking down at the clothes in my forearms.

"But we wanted to Nick. You've done so much for us without asking for anything in return. You deserve a hero's welcome after everything you've done" Bogo said smiling at me. I just nodded with a smile and carefully took the IV out of my arm before I went into the bathroom and swapped clothes. I also put the ring and it's case in my pocket after I put the pants on

"These feel really good" I said walking out of the bathroom and Judy had taken my robotic paw into her own leading me out of the room, and I had noticed the others were following me.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the front of the hospital. Every single animal that was evacuated wants to see their hero" Judy told me. I chuckled and placed my left paw around her waist.

"You're a hero too, you know. The first rabbit warrior to ever help take the city back from the zombies. If anything, you deserve just as much credit as me" I said nuzzling her head underneath my chin as we walked.

 **(Judy's P.O.V.)**

After hearing what Nick said, I couldn't help but blush. He was so sweet and thoughtful, that was one of the many reasons why I loved him other than his bravery and allowing himself to get bitten for the sake of taking back his home from flesh eating beasts. The minute we got out the doors, there were at least fifty dozen animals standing by the steps of the hospital cheering and calling out for Nick. I felt him stop and stare all around the animals who were cheering for us, even my family who was in the audience with the rest of them.

"You rock Nick!" I heard my mother call out.

"Way to take our city back, Wilde! You're amazing!" my father had called out, which made me smile. The faction members and myself had told my family about Nick and his life and what he did to save the city which made them have a change of heart about foxes. I then noticed Lionheart walk up in front of us and was handed a microphone by one of the doctors that was working in the hospital and spoke into it.

"Animals of Zootopia! We have finally taken back the city from the clutches of the zombies and the one who was responsible for them taking over. Former assistant mayor and traitor to her city, Dawn Bellwether" Lionheart announced, which made everyone cheer. Everyone was so happy that now they were getting to go home at last. This was really exciting.

"And we have some special animals to thank. A small faction lead by a brave fox who fought as a solider during the zombie war, Nick Wilde" Lionheart exclaimed pointing to Nick, and causing everyone in the audience to break into applause and cheering in happiness. So this is what a hero's welcome felt like, huh? It felt good knowing we saved a city from zombies. I turned my head away from the crowd to see Nick walk up to Lionheart and tug on the leg of his pants to get his attention, when he lowered his head down, Nick whispered something into his ear. Not even my great rabbit hearing could pick up what he was saying since he was whispering so quietly.

"Everyone, Nick Wilde, the leader of the faction who took our city back has an announcement to make" Lionheart said into the microphone and looked down to Nick as he handed it to him. Taking the microphone into the paw that wasn't cut off, he spoke into it.

"Thank you, sir" Nick said as he walked over to me.

"The credit for taking back Zootopia doesn't entirely go to me. I've had the best crew by my side, nothing could ever take their places" Nick said, his robot paw pointing at Clawhauser, Gazelle, Mrs. Otterton and her husband. Very humble of him, not wanting to take all the credit but share it with us.

"Not to mention someone who I've grown to love and trust with my life" Nick continued talking and walked over to me.

"I told myself I'd do this if we won the battle" I heard him whisper into my ear before speaking into the microphone again.

"Judy Hopps, you're a great soldier. The world thanks you for your heroic deeds throughout the battle of taking back our home. You've come to know me better than anyone else, and for that I only have one question" he said before getting down on one knee and pulling out a small box with his robot paw and opened it up with one of the claws to reveal a ring. My heart began beating faster than it ever could before and I was blushing, covering my mouth with my paws to cover it up.

"Will you marry me?" he asked. Tears began falling down my face and dripping the concrete. I loved him more than anything and he's done so much for me and the city as well. Nick Wilde is the fox I want as my mate for life.

"Yes" I said nodding my head uncovering my mouth and holding my paw out so he could put the ring on. He took it out with his robot paw and placed it on one of my claws. When it was on, I felt his robotic and regular paw wrap around me and pull me closer to him. We closed our eyes and began to kiss slowly and passionately in front of all the other animals, who were cheering for us. I open one of my eyes and saw Gazelle smiling, the Ottertons nodding while they held paws, and Clawhauser giving us the biggest smile while giving us the 'Claws-Up' with both his paws to us. And with that, I closed my eye and kept on kissing Nick.

"I love you, Nick" I whispered in between the kiss.

"I love you too, Judy" he whispered back as we both kept on kissing. Our adventure with the zombies had just come to a close, but now a new adventure would begin, just me and Nick against the world and no animal, alive or dead is gonna stand in our way.

 **A/N: Yes, everyone gets a happy ending in Zombietopia. The city is ready to be repopulated and Nick not only reunited with his mother whom he missed so dearly, but proposed to Judy to be his wife and she said yes. All that's left for this story is the epilogue, which I promise will be just as good as the beginning. More to come in the epilogue. Please review, thanks!**


	20. Epilogue

**A/N: Where we last left off, the city is no longer inhabited by zombies and is ready to have it's streets roaming with non-infected animals, Nick got a robotic forearm to replace the one that had got cut off and had a tearful reunion with his mother. Judy was proposed to by Nick and she happily accepted to be his mate. Not to mention both Nick and Judy have been welcomed into the ZPD. Now this is the epilogue, which shows what happened after the faction took back the city. Enjoy!**

 **(Normal P.O.V.)**

 **-3 Years Later-**

Inside a two story house in the suburbs in the center of Zootopia rested Nick and Judy in a large king-sized bed underneath a large ocean blue cover, both wearing a tank top that was meant to be worn underneath a regular shirt, their wedding rings on one of their claws. Nick's was dark green and his robotic and normal forearm covered in battle scars wrapped themselves around Judy's torso as they slept, Judy wore a black tank top and smiled in Nick's embrace. The sun shone through the curtains and shined on the sleeping couple. Nick purred in his sleep when he felt the sun's warm rays warm his fur up on his shoulders, neck, face, and arms.

"Judy, it's morning" Nick said gently, trying not to be too loud. The bunny lightly opened her purple eyes and looked to see her husband holding her as he slept peacefully.

"Good morning, my brave and handsome fox" Judy said looking up to him. Nick responded right after opening his emerald green ones and looked right back down at her.

"Good morning to you too, my vicious little bunny" Nick replied gently running his claws down the back of one of her ears, which made her murr in delight, as her husband caressed her ears.

"Today's the day we address the graduates at the academy" Judy said as she murred.

"I know, the same day every year" Nick said as his robot hand moved upwards and touched her shoulder. They both heard their bedroom door open and the sound of small paw-steps running towards them. A 7 ½ year old, swift fox with, sandy blonde fur, dark blue eyes, and wearing pajamas that were light blue with blue spots began jumping on the bed and shaking it.

"Wake up, mom and dad! It's the last day of school!" he cheered. Both the fox and bunny chuckled with their eyes still halfway closed.

"Alright, alright. We're up, you got us" Judy said sitting up in bed with Nick doing the same.

"Good morning, Riley" Judy greeted her adopted son. Yes, after the first year of their marriage, Nick and Judy had decided to adopt a kit of their own. So, near Christmas time, they found a small orphanage in Sahara Square and found the small swift fox living there. The day of adoption was the best Christmas present that little fox ever received, he took a liking to his new parents and the three were like best friends. Nick and Judy told Riley all their old war stories from back when the zombies took over, he liked playing video games with his dad and playing outdoor sports with his mother.

"Good morning, mom. Good morning dad" Riley said hugging his adopted father. The best thing Riley liked about his dad was his robot arm, and the stories he told about his days during the zombie war and how he met Judy during their seemingly hopeless fight to take back the city but won in the end.

"Good morning, sport. You excited that summer vacation starts today?" asked Nick, hugging Riley and the only thing the younger fox could do was nod.

"Well then, go ahead and get dressed. Today's still a school day and I'm sure your friends are wanting to see you" Nick said breaking apart the hug and pointed to the door with one of his robot claws.

"Okay, dad" he said running out of the room. Judy got out of bed and walked towards the closet.

"He really enjoyed his bedtime story last night" Nick said as he got out of bed and inserted his hind-paws into his comfy light gray slippers.

"Oh really? What did you read him?" Judy asked as she got dressed.

"My old bedtime story" he said stretching his limbs in front of the window and opened up the curtains, illuminating the room with the sunlight. Judy then peeked her head out the closet door and looked to him.

"Prrride and Prrrejudice?" she asked. Nick nodded with a smile.

"He thought he wasn't gonna like it, but he did. Now he wants to know what happens to Elizabeth and if she'd get together with Mr. Darcy. I told him he'd have to wait until the next night to find out" Nick said as he walked over to the other closet that was close to the one Judy was in and shut the door, beginning to get dressed as well.

"I always loved that book ever since you read it to me years ago" Judy said as she was now out of her pajamas and began putting on her navy blue police uniform and put the badge on the front. Nick was doing the same, only he placed on a black glove to cover up his robot paw, and then exited his closet the same time Judy exited hers and gazed upon each other with loving eyes.

"That outfit makes you look fierce and beautiful at the same time" Nick said gazing upon her.

"Well your outfit makes you look both heroic and handsome" Judy said returning a different but equal compliment. Nick then kissed Judy on the cheek and then planted another kiss on her other.

"Nick, you're such a flirt" Judy said as she walked out of the room and into the kitchen with Nick following her and sitting down on a chair on the kitchen island in the middle of the room.

"Oh come on, you know you love me" said Nick, his gloved paw tapping it's claws on the surface of the table.

"Do I know that? Yes I do" Judy said walking up to Nick and kissing him on the nose before going to the fridge and taking out some snacks and lunch items before placing them in a brown paper bag. As soon as all the items were in the bag, she took out a blue permanent marker and wrote Riley's name on the front. Nick decided to help out too and took four waffles out the fridge and placed them in the toaster which sat in the corner on the kitchen counter underneath the microwave.

"Riley! Come down, it's breakfast time!" Nick called out before getting some plates, knives, forks, butter, and syrup. Soon, Judy and Nick turned to the kitchen's entrance to see Riley wearing a t-shirt with the words 'This is my Zombie Killing Shirt, with some fake blood spatters on it, as well as dark blue denim jeans. The shirt was a gift for Riley's 7th birthday, Judy had found it at a small novelty store in the shopping district of the city and thought it would make a cute little gift for her little pup.

"I see you're wearing the shirt today" Nick said pointing out his son's t-shirt. Riley looked down at it and back up at him smiling and nodding at once.

"Yep, it's my favorite one" Riley said sitting down next to his father and waited patiently for his waffles. Soon, they were done and Judy placed them on Nick and Riley's plates.

"Are we still having the barbecue tonight, mom?" Riley asked.

"We sure are, honey. Best way to celebrate the last day of school is a barbecue" Judy said as she placed some waffles in the toaster for herself.

"And guess who's coming?" Nick asked Riley, which made his eyes widen as well as his smile.

"Uncle Ben and Aunt Gazelle!?" he asked.

"Yes" Nick said and that was enough to have Riley cheering and jumping for joy. Gazelle and Clawhauser remained together as a couple after the city was taken back. After putting down their weapons for good, Gazelle went back to her old life as the city's most famous pop-star like she did before the war, she even wrote a song based on her experiences fighting against the zombies with Nick, Judy and everyone else. She called it 'Born to be Wild'. Clawhauser became one of her backup dancers and wrote some songs for Gazelle to sing as well, some of them were even pretty big hits that everyone loved. And during a concert, near the end he proposed to her on stage and she accepted. When Riley was adopted, both of them were super excited, he may not of been their biological nephew but they were his godparents and he liked calling them Aunt Gazelle and Uncle Ben.

"The Ottertons and their kids are gonna be here too" Judy said as she took her waffles out the toaster and placed them on her plate to prepare them. Mr. and Mrs. Otterton moved into the same neighborhood Nick and Judy lived in and had a few pups of their own, they were close friends with Riley and he went to school with them too.

"Awesome!" Riley cheered. Judy chuckled and patted her son's head.

"Okay, let's not get over excited there, pal. Eat your breakfast, the bus is gonna be here any minute" Judy said kindly as she sat down next to Nick. The three family members ate in silence until they finished their waffles and placed their dishes in the dishwasher.

"Here's your lunch, I put a brownie in there for snack time" Judy said when handing Riley his lunch and kissing his forehead.

"Thanks mom" Riley said before hugging both his parents at once and they hugged back.

"You're welcome. Now have a good last day at school and have fun!" Judy called out as Riley left the room and out the front door to catch the bus for school. Now it was just Nick and Judy alone in the house. So, they got to enjoy a half-hour more of their company and drinking their coffee together in the living room.

"Excited for the barbecue tonight?" Judy asked Nick who was looking up at the mantelpiece. When they bought the house, Judy and Nick hung their old weapons up on the wall to remind them of the good old days back when they first met and fought to make the city their home again. Judy's tomahawks were hung on the wall, and her sawed off double-barrel was in a glass case that sat in the middle of the mantelpiece. Nick's machete was in the very middle in between the tomahawks. And on the right edge was a framed photo of Nick, Judy, Clawhauser, Gazelle, and the Ottertons together in front of the hospital together and holding their weapons in their paws, a very special moment that they remembered for the rest of their lives.

"Sure am, it's gonna be great seeing everyone together again" Nick answered before taking one more sip of his coffee and a beeping sound was made, it was the sound of Judy's smart-phone alarm which told them it was time to head out the door and leave for the police academy to address the graduating recruits for the force.

"Let's go. Bogo and Lionheart should be waiting for us there" Judy said finishing her coffee and went to the driveway. Nick then finished his coffee with one big gulp and followed her to their patrol car that was given to them the day they graduated police academy themselves. Nick got to ride shotgun while Judy drove them to the academy which was a thirty minute drive.

The couple arrived right on time and saw that Bogo and Lionheart haven't gotten up on the stage yet. Several animals that were predator and prey were sitting in fold-able chairs that were in front of the stage wearing the exact same uniforms Judy and Nick were wearing.

"Did we miss anything?" Nick asked readjusting his black tie on his uniform.

"Nope, you're just in time. Bogo's about start right now" said Lionheart. All eyes were on the large buffalo stepping onto the stage and standing in front of a podium with several microphones mounted to it and spoke into them.

"Welcome graduates. I want to congratulate you for making it this far. Soon, you will no longer be students, you will be full-fledged police officers ready to uphold and defend the law of Zootopia" Bogo announced, which made everyone in the audience clap. Lionheart, Judy, and Nick clapped their paws smiling too.

"Before we start, I'd like you all to welcome two very special animals. They may have started out mere soldiers who fought against the zombies and took down the traitor responsible for their existence, but now they're the best officers on the force and have been a source of inspiration for many..." Bogo said, this was the signal for Judy and Nick to get ready to go up on the stage when Bogo called their names.

"Are you ready?" Judy asked. Nick just cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

"If you are, whiskers" Nick said kissing her forehead.

"...Please welcome, Nick and Judy Wilde!" Bogo called out. All the recruits were clapping as they made their way to the stage and walked to two smaller podiums right next to the taller one Bogo had.

"Congratulations you future law enforcement officers. You've worked incredibly hard to get where you are right now and your hard work is about to be rewarded greatly as you will be accepted into the Zootopia Police Department" Judy began, which opened up an opportunity for Nick to speak.

"But just know one thing... it's not the things you do that make you a hero. It's whats in your heart that qualifies. A hero is brave, selfless, honest, kind, and smart, and as long as you have these attributes inside you, and put them into everything you do... that makes you a hero. So don't just think of it as the next generation of ZPD officers... think of it at the next generation of heroes" Nick said, his part of the speech made Judy smile as she looked at him before returning her focus to the audience.

"Welcome to the team" they both said in unison. Their words inspiring them even more than ever before, they sought even more to be like them and maybe someday fight beside them. Nick and Judy smiled at the audience of graduates and deep down they knew that this was the future they fought to create, a future that would no longer have any zombies. It was the age of a new Zootopia.

- **The End-**

 **A/N: Yes, it's the end of Zombietopia. I wanna thank you so much the readers and reviewers who read and liked this story, as well as the support given as this story has progressed. I will do more Zootopia stories in the future, but this story was just the beginning. Also, I plan on doing a prequel for this story called 'Zombietopia: Wilde Dawn' so I hope all of you who loved this story will be looking forward to it, for it's still under construction and almost ready for posting. Please review, thanks!**


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